PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


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Mrs.  Robert  Lenox  Kennedy  Church  History  Fund. 


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The  Life  and  Times  of 

Cleopatra,  Queen  of  Eg 


"Histories  make  men  wise." — Bacon. 

"I  have  no  expectation  that  any  man  will  read  historj-  aright 
who  thinks  that  what  was  done  in  a  remote  age  .  .  .  has 
any  deeper  sense  than  what  he  is  doing  to-day." — Emerson. 

"To  philosophise  on  mankind  exact  observation  is  not 
sufficient.  .  .  .  Knowledge  of  the  present  must  be  supple- 
mented from  the  history  of  the  past." — Taine. 

"Only  the  dead  men  know  the  tunes  the  live  world  dances 
to." — Le  Gallienne. 

"Awake  and  sing,  ye  that  dwell  in  dust  :  for  .  .  .  the  earth 
shall  cast  out  the  dead." — Isaiah. 


Briiish  Afuseiiiu.]  [P/idog^rafih  ly  ^racbeth. 

CLEOPATRA. 


The  Life  and  Times  of 

Cleopatra,  Queen  of  Egypt 


ARTHUR   E.   P.   BROME  WEIGALL 

LATE  INSPECTOR-GENERAL  OF  ANTIQUITIES,  GOVERNMENT  OF  EGYPT 
AUTHOR  OF 

•  THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  AKHNATON,  PHARAOH  OF  EGYPT,'  ETC. 


WITH  MAPS  AND  FOURTEEN  ILLUSTRATIONS 


New  York 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 
1914 


/  DEDICATE  THIS  BOOK 
TO  MY  FRIEND  OF  MANY  YEARS, 
%ONALD  STORES, 

ORIENTAL  SECRETARY  TO  THE  BRITISH  AGENCY  IN  EGYPT, 
SCHOLAR,  POET,  AND  MUSICIAN. 


PREFACE. 


I  HAVE  to  thank  most  heartily  the  Honourable  Mrs 
Julian  Byng,  Mrs  Gerald  Lascelles,  Mr  Ronald  Storrs, 
and  my  wife,  for  reading  the  proofs  of  this  volume, 
and  for  giving  me  the  benefit  of  their  invaluable  advice. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Introduction      .......  xiii 

Part  I.— CLEOPATRA  AND  C^SAR. 

CHAP. 

I.  AN     INTRODUCTORY    STUDY     OF    THE    CHARACTER  OF 

CLEOPATRA  ......  3 

II.  THE  CITY  OF  ALEXANDRIA  .  .  .  .  18 

III.  THE  BIRTH  AND  EARLY  YEARS  OF  CLEOPATRA    .  .  4I 

IV.  THE  DEATH  OF  POMPEY   AND  THE  ARRIVAL  OF  C^SAR 

IN  EGYPT  ......  65 

V.  CAIUS  JULIUS  CvESAR  .  .  .  .  .82 

VI.  CLEOPATRA  AND  C^SAR  IN  THE  BESIEGED  PALACE  AT 

ALEXANDRIA  ......  95 

VII.  THE    BIRTH    OF    CiESARION    AND    OESAR'S  DEPARTURE 

FROM  EGYPT         .  .  .  .  .  .114 

VIII.  CLEOPATRA  AND  C^SAR  IN  ROME  .  .  -133 

IX.  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THE  EGYPTO-ROMAN  MONARCHY.  153 
X.  THE  DEATH  OF  CiCSAR  AND  THE  RETURN  OF  CLEOPATRA 

TO  EGYPT  ......  178 

Part  II.— CLEOPATRA  AND  ANTONY. 

XI.  THE  character  OF  ANTONY  AND  HIS  RISE  TO  POWER  203 
XII.  THE  ALLIANCE  BETWEEN  CLEOPATRA  AND  ANTONY  .  224 
XIII.  CLEOPATRA  AND  ANTONY  IN  ALEXANDRIA  .  .  238 


X 


CONTENTS 


XIV.  THE    ALLIANCE    RENEWED    BETWEEN    CLEOPATRA  AND 

ANTONY     .......  254 

XV.  THE    PREPARATIONS   OF   CLEOPATRA   AND   ANTONY  FOR 

THE  OVERTHROW  OF  OCTAVIAN  .  .  .  279 

XVI.  THE  DECLINE  OF  ANTONY'S  POWER  .  .  .  303 

XVII.  THE  BATTLE  OF  ACTIUM  AND  THE  FLIGHT  TO  EGYPT    .  324 
XVIII.  CLEOPATRA'S  ATTEMPT  TO  BEGIN  AGAIN  .  .  .  349 

XIX.  OCTAVIAN'S   INVASION   OF    EGYPT    AND   THE   DEATH  OF 

ANTONY     .......  368 

XX.  THE    DEATH    OF    CLEOPATRA    AND    THE    TRIUMPH  OF 

OCTAVIAN  ......  386 


GENEALOGY  OF  THE  PTOLEMIES 


Ai  end. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


CLEOPATRA  ...... 

British  Museum.    Photograph  by  Macbeth. 

PORTRAIT  OF  A  GREEK  LADY  .... 

The  painting  dates  from  a  generation  later  than  that  of 
Cleopatra,  but  it  is  an  example  of  the  work  of  the  Alexandrian 
artists. 

Cairo  Museum.    Photograph  by  Brugsch. 

SERAPIS  :    THE  CHIEF  GOD  OF  ALEXANDRIA 
Alexandria  Museum. 

POMPEY  THE  GREAT  .... 
Rome.    Photograph  by  Anderson. 

JULIUS  C^SAR  ..... 
British  Museum. 

CLEOPATRA  ..... 
British  Museum.    Photograph  by  Macbeth. 

JULIUS  C^SAR  ..... 
Vatican.    Photograph  by  Anderson. 

ANTONY  ...... 


Vatican.    Photograph  by  Anderson. 

OCTAVIAN  ...... 

Vatican.    Photograph  by  Anderson. 

ANTONIA,  THE  DAUGHTER  OF  ANTONY  . 

British  Museum.    Photograph  by  Macbeth. 

CLEOPATRA  AND  HER  SON  C^ESARION 

Represented  conventionally  upon  a  wall  of  the  Temple  of 
Dendera. 


Frontispiece 
To  face  p.  32 


48 
66 
88 
128 
160 
208 
240 
290 
304 


xii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


CLEOPATRA.  .....  To  foCC  p.  l^Z 

British  Museum.    Photograph  by  Macbeth. 

OCTAVIAN     .......  II  376 

Glyptothek,  Munich.   Photograph  by  Bruckmann. 

THE  NILE    .......  II  400 

An  example  of  Alexandrian  art. 
Vatican.    Photograph  by  Anderson. 


MAPS  AND  PLAN. 

/EGYPTUS     .......  II  xii 

the  known  world  in  the  time  of  cleopatra      .        n  xx 
approximate  plan  of  alexandria  in  the  time  of 

cleopatra     ......        11  24 

Cleopatra's  possessions  in  relation  to  the  roman 

WORLD  ......  II  64 

A  MAP  ILLUSTRATING  THE  WAR  BETWEEN  CLEOPATRA 

AND  OCTAVIAN  .....  11  368 


INTRODUCTION. 


In  the  following  pages  it  will  be  observed  that,  in  order 
not  to  distract  the  reader,  I  have  refrained  from  adding 
large  numbers  of  notes,  references,  and  discussions,  such 
as  are  customary  in  works  of  this  kind.  I  am  aware  that 
by  telling  a  straightforward  story  in  this  manner  I  lay 
myself  open  to  the  suspicions  of  my  fellow-workers,  for 
there  is  always  some  tendency  to  take  not  absolutely 
seriously  a  book  which  neither  prints  chapter  and  verse 
for  its  every  statement,  nor  often  interrupts  the  text 
with  erudite  arguments.  In  the  case  of  the  subject 
which  is  here  treated,  however,  it  has  seemed  to  me 
unnecessary  to  encumber  the  pages  in  this  manner, 
since  the  sources  of  my  information  are  all  so  well 
known ;  and  I  have  thus  been  able  to  present  the  book 
to  the  reader  in  a  style  consonant  with  a  principle  of 
archaeological  and  historical  study  to  which  I  have 
always  endeavoured  to  adhere — namely,  the  avoidance 
of  as  many  of  those  attestations  of  learning  as  may 
be  discarded  without  real  loss.  A  friend  of  mine,  an 
eminent  scholar,  in  discussing  with  me  the  scheme  of 
this  volume,  earnestly  exhorted  me  on  the  present 
occasion  not  to  abide  by  this  principle.  Remarking 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

that  the  trouble  with  my  interpretation  of  history  was 
that  I  attempted  to  make  the  characters  live,  he  urged 
me  at  least  to  justify  the  manner  of  their  resuscitation 
in  the  eyes  of  the  doctors  of  science  by  cramming  my 
pages  with  extracts  from  my  working  notes,  relevant  or 
otherwise,  and  by  smattering  my  text  with  Latin  and 
Greek  quotations.  I  trust,  however,  that  he  was  speak- 
ing in  behalf  of  a  very  small  company,  for  the  sooner 
this  kind  of  jargon  of  scholarship  is  swept  into  the 
world's  dust -bin,  the  better  will  it  be  for  public  edu- 
cation. To  my  mind  a  knowledge  of  the  past  is  so 
necessary  to  a  happy  mental  poise  that  it  seems  absol- 
utely essential  for  historical  studies  to  be  placed  before 
the  general  reader  in  a  manner  sympathetic  to  him, 
"  History,"  said  Emerson,  "  no  longer  shall  be  a  dull 
book.  It  shall  walk  incarnate  in  every  just  and  wise 
man.  You  shall  not  tell  me  by  languages  and  titles  a 
catalogue  of  the  volumes  you  have  read.  You  shall 
make  me  feel  what  periods  you  have  lived." 

Such  has  been  my  attempt  in  the  following  pages  ; 
and,  though  I  am  so  conscious  of  my  literary  limitations 
that  I  doubt  my  ability  to  place  the  reader  in  touch  with 
past  events,  I  must  confess  to  a  sense  of  gladness  that 
I,  at  any  rate,  with  almost  my  whole  mind,  have  lived 
for  a  time  in  the  company  of  the  men  and  women  of  long 
ago  of  whom  these  pages  tell. 

Any  of  my  readers  who  think  that  my  interpretation 
of  the  known  incidents  here  recorded  is  faulty  may  easily 
check  my  statements  by  reference  to  the  classical  authors. 
The  sources  of  information  are  available  at  any  big 
library.  They  consist  of  Plutarch,  Cicero,  Suetonius, 
Dion  Cassius,  Appian,  '  De  Bello  Alexandrine,'  Strabo, 
Diodorus   Siculus,   Livy,  Velleius   Paterculus,  Seneca, 


INTRODUCTION 


XV 


Lucan,  Josephus,  Pliny,  Dion  Chrysostom,  Tacitus, 
Florus,  Lucian,  Athenaeus,  Porphyry,  and  Orosius.  Of 
modern  writers  reference  should  be  made  to  Ferrero's 
'Greatness  and  Decline  of  Rome,'  Bouche-Leclercq's 
'  Histoire  des  Lagides,'  Mahaffy's  '  Empire  of  the 
Ptolemies,'  Mommsen's  *  History  of  Rome,'  Strack's 
*  Dynastie  der  Ptolemaer,'  and  Sergeant's  '  Cleopatra 
of  Egypt.'  There  are  also,  of  course,  a  very  large 
number  of  works  on  special  branches  of  the  subject, 
which  the  reader  will,  without  much  difficulty,  discover 
for  himself. 

I  do  not  think  that  my  statements  of  fact  will  be 
found  to  be  in  error;  but  the  general  interpretation  of 
the  events  will  be  seen  to  be  almost  entirely  new 
throughout  the  story,  and  therefore  plainly  open  to 
discussion.  I  would  only  plead  for  my  views  that  a 
residence  in  Egypt  of  many  years,  a  close  association 
with  Alexandria,  Cleopatra's  capital,  and  a  daily  famili- 
arity with  Greek  and  Egyptian  antiquities,  have  caused 
me  almost  unconsciously  to  form  opinions  which  may 
not  be  at  once  acceptable  to  the  scholar  at  home. 

To  some  extent  it  is  the  business  of  the  biographer 
to  make  the  best  of  the  characters  with  which  he  deals, 
but  the  accusation  of  having  made  use  of  this  pre- 
rogative in  the  following  pages  will  not  be  able  to  be 
substantiated.  There  is  no  high  purpose  served  by  the 
historian  who  sets  down  this  man  or  that  woman  as 
an  unmitigated  blackguard,  unless  it  be  palpably  im- 
possible to  discover  any  good  motive  for  his  or  her 
actions.  And  even  then  it  is  a  pleasant  thing  to  avert, 
where  possible,  the  indignation  of  posterity.  An  un- 
defined sense  of  anger  is  left  upon  the  mind  of  many 
of  those  who  have  read  pages  of  condemnatory  history 


xvi 


INTRODUCTION 


of  this  kind,  written  by  scholars  who  themselves  are 
seated  comfortably  in  the  artificial  atmosphere  of  modern 
righteousness.  The  story  of  the  Plantagenet  kings  of 
England,  for  example,  as  recorded  by  Charles  Dickens 
in  his  '  Child's  History  of  England,'  causes  the  reader 
to  direct  his  anger  more  often  to  Dickens  than  to  those 
weary,  battle-stained,  old  monarchs  whose  blood  many 
Englishmen  are  still  proud  to  acknowledge.  An  historian 
who  deals  with  a  black  period  must  not  be  fastidious. 
Nor  must  he  detach  his  characters  from  their  natural 
surroundings,  and  judge  them  according  to  a  code  of 
morals  of  which  they  themselves  knew  nothing.  The 
modern,  and  not  infrequently  degenerate,  humanitarian 
may  utter  his  indignant  complaint  against  the  Norman 
barons  who  extracted  the  teeth  of  the  Jewish  financiers 
to  induce  them  to  deliver  up  their  gold ;  but  has  he 
set  himself  to  feel  that  pressing  need  of  money  which 
the  barons  felt,  and  has  he  endeavoured  to  experience 
their  exasperation  at  the  obstinacy  of  these  foreigners  ? 
Let  him  do  this  and  his  attitude  will  be  more  tolerant : 
one  might  even  live  to  see  him  hastening  to  the  City 
with  a  pair  of  pincers  in  his  pocket.  Of  course  it  is 
not  the  historian's  affair  to  condone,  or  become  a  party 
to,  a  crime ;  but  it  certainly  is  his  business  to  consider 
carefully  the  meaning  of  the  term  "  crime,"  and  to 
question  its  significance,  as  Pilate  did  that  of  truth. 

In  studying  the  characters  of  persons  who  lived  in 
past  ages,  the  biographer  must  tell  us  frankly  whether 
he  considers  his  subjects  good  or  bad,  liberal  or  mean, 
pious  or  impious ;  but  at  this  late  hour  he  should  not 
often  be  wholly  condemnatory,  nor,  indeed,  need  he  be 
expected  to  have  so  firm  a  belief  in  man's  capacity  for 
consistent  action  as  to  admit  that  any  person  was  so 


INTRODUCTION 


xvii 


invariably  villainous  as  he  may  be  said  to  have  been. 
A  natural  and  inherent  love  of  right-doing  will  some- 
times lead  the  historian  to  err  somewhat  on  the  side 
of  magnanimity ;  and  I  dare  say  he  will  serve  the  pur- 
pose of  history  best  when  he  can  honestly  find  a  devil 
not  so  black  as  he  is  painted.  Being  acquainted  with 
the  morals  of  1509,  I  would  almost  prefer  to  think  of 
Henry  the  Eighth  as  "bluff  King  Hal,"  than  as  "the 
most  detestable  villain  that  ever  drew  breath."^  I 
believe  that  an  historian,  in  sympathy  with  his  period, 
can  at  one  and  the  same  moment  absolve  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots  from  the  charge  of  treachery,  and  defend 
Elizabeth's  actions  against  her  on  that  charge. 

In  the  case  of  Cleopatra  the  biographer  may  approach 
his  subject  from  one  of  several  directions.  He  may,  for 
example,  regard  the  Queen  of  Egypt  as  a  thoroughly  bad 
woman,  or  as  an  irresponsible  sinner,  or  as  a  moderately 
good  woman  in  a  difficult  situation.  In  this  book  it  is 
my  object  to  point  out  the  difficulty  of  the  situation,  and 
to  realise  the  adverse  circumstances  against  which  the 
Queen  had  to  contend ;  and  by  so  doing  a  fairer  com- 
plexion will  be  given  to  certain  actions  which  otherwise 
must  inevitably  be  regarded  as  darkly  sinful.  The 
biographer  need  not,  for  the  sake  of  his  principles,  turn 
his  back  on  the  sinner  and  refuse  to  consider  the  pos- 
sibility of  extenuating  circumstances.  He  need  not,  as 
we  so  often  must  in  regard  to  our  contemporaries,  make 
a  clear  distinction  between  good  and  bad,  shunning  the 
sinner  that  our  intimates  may  not  be  contaminated. 
The  past,  to  some  extent,  is  gone  beyond  the  eventuality 
of  Hell ;  and  Time,  the  great  Redeemer,  has  taken  from 
the  world  the  sharpness  of  its  sin.    The  historian  thus 

^  Dickens. 


xviii 


INTRODUCTION 


may  put  himself  in  touch  with  distant  crime,  and  may 
attempt  to  apologise  for  it,  without  the  charge  being 
brought  against  him  that  in  so  doing  he  deviates  from 
the  stern  path  of  moral  rectitude.  Intolerance  is  the 
simple  expedient  of  contemporaneous  society:  the  his- 
torian must  show  his  distaste  for  wrong-doing  by  other 
means.  We  dare  not  excuse  the  sins  of  our  fellows ; 
but  the  wreck  of  times  past,  the  need  of  reconstruction 
and  rebuilding,  gives  the  writer  of  history  and  biographj' 
a  certain  option  in  the  selection  of  the  materials  which 
he  uses  in  the  resuscitation  of  his  characters.  He  holds 
a  warrant  from  the  Lord  of  the  Ages  to  give  them  the 
benefit  of  the  doubt ;  and  if  it  be  his  whim  to  ignore 
this  licence  and  to  condemn  wholesale  a  character  or  a 
family,  he  sometimes  loses,  by  a  sort  of  perversion,  the 
prerogative  of  his  calling.  The  historian  must  examine 
from  all  sides  the  events  which  he  is  studying ;  and  in 
regard  to  the  subject  with  which  this  volume  deals  he 
must  be  particularly  careful  not  to  direct  his  gaze  upon 
it  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Imperial  Court  of 
Rome,  which  regarded  Cleopatra  as  the  ancestral  enemy 
of  the  dynasty.  In  dealing  with  history,  says  Emerson, 
"  we,  as  we  read,  must  become  Greeks,  Romans,  Turks, 
priest  and  king,  martyr  and  executioner,"  Even  so,  as 
we  study  the  life  of  Cleopatra,  we  must  set  behind  us 
that  view  of  the  case  that  was  held  by  one  section  of 
humanity.  In  like  manner  we  must  rid  ourselves  of  the 
influence  of  the  thought  of  any  one  period,  and  must 
ignore  that  aspect  of  morality  which  has  been  developed 
in  us  by  contact  with  the  age  in  which  we  have  the 
fortune  to  live.  Good  and  evil  are  relative  qualities, 
defined  very  largely  by  public  opinion ;  and  it  must 
always  be  remembered  that  certain  things  which  are 


INTRODUCTION 


XIX 


considered  to  be  correct  to-day  may  have  the  denun- 
ciation of  yesterday  and  to-morrow.  We,  as  we  read 
of  the  deeds  of  the  Queen  of  Egypt,  must  doff  our 
modern  conception  of  right  and  wrong  together  with 
our  top-hats  and  frock-coats ;  and,  as  we  pace  the  courts 
of  the  Ptolemies,  and  breathe  the  atmosphere  of  the 
first  century  before  Christ,  we  must  not  commit  the 
anachronism  of  criticising  our  surroundings  from  the 
standard  of  twenty  centuries  after  Christ.  It  is,  of 
course,  apparent  that  to  a  great  extent  we  must  be 
influenced  by  the  thought  of  to-day  ;  but  the  true  student 
of  history  will  make  the  elfort  to  cast  from  him  the 
shackles  of  his  contemporaneous  opinions,  and  to  parade 
the  bygone  ages  in  the  boundless  freedom  of  a  citizen 
of  all  time  and  a  dweller  in  every  land. 


PART  I. 
CLEOPATRA  AND  CtESAR 


CHAPTER  I. 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  STUDY  OF  THE  CHARACTER  OF 
CLEOPATRA. 

To  those  who  make  a  close  inquiry  into  the  life  of 
Cleopatra  it  will  speedily  become  apparent  that  the 
generally  accepted  estimate  of  her  character  was  placed 
before  the  public  by  those  who  sided  against  her  in 
regard  to  the  quarrel  between  Antony  and  Octavian. 
During  the  last  years  of  her  life  the  great  Queen  of  Egypt 
became  the  mortal  enemy  of  the  first  of  the  Roman 
Emperors,  and  the  memory  of  her  historic  hostility  was 
perpetuated  by  the  supporters  of  every  Caesar  of  that 
dynasty.  Thus  the  beliefs  now  current  as  to  Cleopatra's 
nefarious  influence  upon  Julius  Caesar  and  Marc  Antony 
are,  in  essence,  the  simple  abuse  of  her  opponents ;  nor 
has  History  preserved  to  us  any  record  of  her  life  set 
down  by  one  who  was  her  partisan  in  the  great  struggle 
in  which  she  so  bravely  engaged  herself.  It  is  a  note- 
worthy fact,  however,  that  the  writer  who  is  most  fair 
to  her  memory,  namely,  the  inimitable  Plutarch,  appears 
to  have  obtained  much  of  his  information  from  the  diary 
kept  by  Cleopatra's  doctor,  Olympus.  I  do  not  presume 
in  this  volume  to  offer  any  kind  of  apology  for  the  much- 
maligned  Queen,  but  it  will  be  my  object  to  describe  the 
events  of  her  troubled  life  in  such  a  manner  that  her 


4        LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


aims,  as  I  understand  them,  may  be  fairly  placed  before 
the  reader;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that,  if  I  suc- 
ceed in  giving  plausibility  to  the  speculations  here 
advanced,  the  actions  of  Cleopatra  will,  without  any 
particular  advocacy,  assume  a  character  which,  at  any 
rate,  is  no  uglier  than  that  of  every  other  actor  in  this 
strange  drama. 

The  injustice,  the  adverse  partiality,  of  the  attitude 
assumed  by  classical  authors  will  speedily  become  ap- 
parent to  all  unbiassed  students ;  and  a  single  instance  of 
this  obliquity  of  judgment  is  all  that  need  be  mentioned 
here  to  illustrate  my  contention.  I  refer  to  the  original 
intimacy  between  Cleopatra  and  Julius  Caesar.  Accord- 
ing to  the  accepted  view  of  historians,  both  ancient  and 
modern,  the  great  Dictator  is  supposed  to  have  been 
led  astray  by  the  voluptuous  Egyptian,  and  to  have  been 
detained  in  Alexandria,  against  his  better  judgment,  by 
the  wiles  of  this  Siren  of  the  East.  At  this  time,  how- 
ever, as  will  be  seen  in  due  course,  Cleopatra,  "the 
stranger  for  whom  the  Roman  half  -  brick  was  never 
wanting,"^  was  actually  an  unmarried  girl  of  some 
twenty-one  years  of  age,  against  whose  moral  character 
not  one  shred  of  trustworthy  evidence  can  be  advanced ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  Caesar  was  an  elderly  man 
who  had  ruined  the  wives  and  daughters  of  an  astound- 
ing number  of  his  friends,  and  whose  reputation  for 
such  seductions  was  of  a  character  almost  past  belief. 
How  anybody,  therefore,  who  has  the  known  facts 
before  him,  can  attribute  the  blame  to  Cleopatra  in 
this  instance,  must  become  altogether  incomprehensible 
to  any  student  of  the  events  of  that  time.  I  do  not 
intend  to  represent  the  Queen  of  Egypt  as  a  particularly 

^  Sergeant. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


exalted  type  of  her  sex,  but  an  attempt  will  be  made  to 
deal  justly  with  her,  and  by  giving  her  on  occasion,  as 
in  a  court  of  law,  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  I  feel  assured 
that  the  reader  will  be  able  to  see  in  her  a  very  good 
average  type  of  womanhood.  Nor  need  I,  in  so  doing, 
be  accused  of  using  on  her  behalf  the  privilege  of  the 
biographer,  which  is  to  make  excuses.  I  will  not  simply 
set  forth  the  case  for  Cleopatra  as  it  were  in  her  defence : 
I  will  tell  the  whole  story  of  her  life  as  it  appears  to  me, 
admitting  always  the  possible  correctness  of  the  estimate 
of  her  character  held  by  other  historians,  but,  at  the 
same  time,  offering  to  public  consideration  a  view  of 
her  deeds  and  devices  which,  if  accepted,  will  clear  her 
memory  of  much  of  that  unpleasant  stigma  so  long 
attached  to  it,  and  will  place  her  reputation  upon  a 
level  with  those  of  the  many  famous  persons  of  her  time, 
not  one  of  whom  can  be  called  either  thoroughly  bad  or 
wholly  good. 

So  little  is  known  with  any  certainty  as  to  Cleopatra's 
appearance,  that  the  biographer  must  feel  considerable 
reluctance  in  presenting  her  to  his  readers  in  definite 
guise ;  yet  the  duties  of  an  historian  do  not  permit  him 
to  deal  with  ghosts  and  shadows,  or  to  invoke  from  the 
past  only  the  misty  semblance  of  those  who  once  were 
puissant  realities.  For  him  the  dead  must  rise  not  as 
phantoms  hovering  uncertainly  at  the  mouth  of  their 
tombs,  but  as  substantial  entities  observable  in  every 
detail  to  the  mental  eye ;  and  he  must  endeavour  to 
convey  to  others  the  impression,  however  faulty,  which 
he  himself  has  received.  In  the  case  of  Cleopatra  the 
materials  necessary  for  her  resuscitation  are  meagre,  and 
one  is  forced  to  call  in  the  partial  assistance  of  the 
imagination   in  the  effort  to  rebuild  once  more  that 


6        LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


body  which  has  been  so  long  dissolved  into  Egyptian 
dust. 

A  few  coins  upon  which  the  Queen's  profile  is  stamped, 
and  a  bust  of  poor  workmanship  in  the  British  Museum, 
are  the  sole^  sources  of  information  as  to  her  features. 
The  colour  of  her  eyes  and  of  her  hair  is  not  known ; 
nor  can  it  be  said  whether  her  skin  was  white  as 
alabaster,  like  that  of  many  of  her  Macedonian  fellow- 
countrywomen,  or  whether  it  had  that  olive  tone  so  often 
observed  amongst  the  Greeks.  Even  her  beauty,  or  rather 
the  degree  of  her  beauty,  is  not  clearly  defined.  It  must 
be  remembered  that,  so  far  as  we  know,  not  one  drop 
of  Oriental  blood  flowed  in  Cleopatra's  veins,  and  that 
therefore  her  type  must  be  considered  as  Macedonian 
Greek.  The  slightly  brown  skin  of  the  Egyptian,  the 
heavy  dark  eyes  of  the  East,  full,  as  it  were,  of  sleep, 
the  black  hair  of  silken  texture,  are  not  features  which 
are  to  be  assigned  to  her.  On  the  contrary,  many 
Macedonian  women  are  fair-haired  and  blue-eyed,  and 
that  colouring  is  frequently  to  be  seen  amongst  the 
various  peoples  of  the  Eastern  Mediterranean.  Never- 
theless, it  seems  most  probable,  all  things  considered, 
that  she  was  a  brunette ;  but  in  describing  her  as  such 
it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  is  nothing  more  than 
a  calculated  likelihood  to  guide  us. 

The  features  of  her  face  seem  to  have  been  strongly 
moulded,  although  the  general  effect  given  is  that  of 
smallness  and  delicacy.  Her  nose  was  aquiline  and 
prominent,  the  nostrils  being  sensitive  and  having  an 

^  The  Egyptian  reliefs  upon  the  walls  of  Dendereh  temple  and  elsewhere 
show  conventional  representations  of  the  Queen  which  are  not  to  be  regarded 
as  real  portraits.  The  so-called  head  of  the  Queen  in  the  Alexandria  Museum 
probably  does  not  represent  her  at  all,  as  most  archasologists  will  readily 
admit. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  7 


appearance  of  good  breeding.  Her  mouth  was  beauti- 
fully formed,  the  lips  appearing  to  be  finely  chiselled. 
Her  eyes  were  large  and  well  placed,  her  eyebrows 
delicately  pencilled.  The  contour  of  her  cheek  and  chin 
was  charmingly  rounded,  softening,  thus,  the  lines  of  her 
clear-cut  features.  "Her  beauty,"  says  Plutarch,  "was 
not  in  itself  altogether  incomparable,  nor  such  as  to 
strike  those  who  saw  her " ;  and  he  adds  that  Octavia, 
afterwards  Antony's  wife,  was  the  more  beautiful  of  the 
two  women.  But  he  admits,  and  no  other  man  denies, 
that  her  personal  charm  and  magnetism  were  very  great. 
"  She  was  splendid  to  hear  and  to  see,"  says  Dion 
Cassius,  "  and  was  capable  of  conquering  the  hearts 
which  had  resisted  most  obstinately  the  influence  of 
love  and  those  which  had  been  frozen  by  age." 

It  is  probable  that  she  was  very  small  in  build.  In 
order  to  obtain  admittance  to  her  palace  upon  an 
occasion  of  which  we  shall  presently  read,  it  is  related 
that  she  was  rolled  up  in  some  bedding  and  carried  over 
the  shoulders  of  an  attendant,  a  fact  which  indicates 
that  her  weight  was  not  considerable.  The  British 
Museum  bust  seems  to  portray  the  head  of  a  small 
woman ;  and,  moreover,  Plutarch  refers  to  her  in  terms 
which  suggest  that  her  charm  lay  to  some  extent  in  her 
daintiness.  One  imagines  her  thus  to  have  been  in 
appearance  a  small,  graceful  woman ;  prettily  rounded 
rather  than  slight ;  white-skinned  ;  dark-haired  and  dark- 
eyed  ;  beautiful,  and  yet  by  no  means  a  perfect  type  of 
beauty. 

Her  voice  is  said  to  have  been  her  most  powerful 
weapon,  for  by  the  perfection  of  its  modulations 
it  was  at  all  times  wonderfully  persuasive  and  se- 
ductive. 


8        LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


"  The  Devil  hath  not,  in  all  his  quiver's  choice, 
An  arrow  for  the  heart  like  a  sweet  voice," 

says  Byron ;  and  in  the  case  of  Cleopatra  this  poignant 
gift  of  Nature  must  have  served  her  well  throughout  her 
life.  "Familiarity  with  her,"  writes  Plutarch,  "had  an 
irresistible  charm ;  and  her  form,  combined  with  her 
persuasive  speech,  and  with  the  peculiar  character  which 
in  a  manner  was  diffused  about  her  behaviour,  produced  a 
certain  piquancy.  There  was  a  sweetness  in  the  sound 
of  her  voice  when  she  spoke.  "  Her  charm  of  speech," 
Dion  Cassius  tells  us,  "was  such  that  she  won  all  who 
listened." 

Her  grace  of  manner  was  as  irresistible  as  her  voice ; 
for,  as  Plutarch  remarks,  there  seems  to  have  been  this 
peculiar,  undefined  charm  in  her  behaviour.  It  may 
have  been  largely  due  to  a  kind  of  elusiveness  and 
subtilty ;  but  it  would  seem  also  to  have  been  accentu- 
ated by  a  somewhat  naive  and  childish  manner,  a  way- 
wardnesss,  an  audacity,  a  capriciousness,  which  enchanted 
those  around  her.  Though  often  wild  and  inclined  to 
romp,  she  possessed  considerable  dignity  and  at  times 
was  haughty  and  proud.  Pliny  speaks  of  her  as  being 
disdainful  and  vain,  and  indeed  so  Cicero  found  her 
when  he  met  her  in  Rome  ;  but  this  was  an  attitude 
perhaps  assumed  by  the  Queen  as  a  defence  against 
the  light  criticisms  of  those  Roman  nobles  of  the 
Pompeian  faction  who  may  have  found  her  position 
not  so  honourable  as  she  herself  believed  it  to  be. 
There  is,  indeed,  little  to  indicate  that  her  manner  was 
by  nature  overbearing ;  and  one  is  inclined  to  picture 
her  as  a  natural,  impulsive  woman  who  passed  readily 
from  haughtiness  to  simplicity.  Her  actions  were  spon- 
taneous, and  one  may  suppose  her  to  have  been  in  her 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


early  years  as  often  artless  as  cunning.  Her  character 
was  always  youthful,  her  temperament  vivacious,  and 
her  manner  frequently  what  maybe  called  harum-scarum. 
She  enjoyed  life,  and  with  candour  took  from  it  whatever 
pleasures  it  held  out  to  her.  Her  untutored  heart  leapt 
from  mirth  to  sorrow,  from  comedy  to  tragedy,  with 
unexpected  ease ;  and  with  her  small  hands  she  tossed 
about  her  the  fabric  of  her  complex  circumstances  like  a 
mantle  of  light  and  darkness. 

She  was  a  gifted  woman,  endowed  by  nature  with  ready 
words  and  a  happy  wit.  "  She  could  easily  turn  her 
tongue,"  says  Plutarch,  "  like  a  many-stringed  instru- 
ment, to  any  language  that  she  pleased.  She  had  very 
seldom  need  of  an  interpreter  for  her  communication 
with  foreigners,  but  she  answered  most  men  by  herself, 
namely  Ethiopians,  Troglodytes,  Hebrews,  Arabs,  Syrians, 
Medes,  and  Parthians.  She  is  said  to  have  learned  the 
language  of  many  other  peoples,  though  the  kings,  her 
predecessors,  had  not  even  taken  the  pains  to  learn  the 
Egyptian  tongue,  and  some  of  them  had  not  so  much  as 
given  up  the  Macedonian  dialect."  Statecraft  made  a 
strong  appeal  to  her,  and  as  Queen  of  Egypt  she  served 
the  cause  of  her  dynasty's  independence  and  aggrandise- 
ment with  passionate  energy.  Dion  Cassius  tells  us  that 
she  was  intensely  ambitious,  and  most  careful  that  due 
honour  should  be  paid  to  her  throne.  Her  actions  go  to 
confirm  this  estimate,  and  one  may  see  her  consumed  at 
times  with  a  legitimate  desire  for  world-power.  Though 
clever  and  bold  she  was  not  highly  skilled,  so  far  as  one 
can  see,  in  the  diplomatic  art ;  but  she  seems  to  have 
plotted  and  schemed  in  the  manner  common  to  her 
house,  not  so  much  with  great  acuteness  or  profound 
depth  as  with  sustained  intensity  and  a  sort  of  conviction. 


10       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Tenacity  of  purpose  is  seen  to  have  been  her  prevailing 
characteristic ;  and  her  unwavering  struggle  for  her 
rights  and  those  of  her  son  Caesarion  will  surely  be 
followed  by  the  interested  reader  through  the  long  story 
before  him  with  real  admiration. 

It  is  unanimously  supposed  that  Cleopatra  was,  as 
Josephus  words  it,  a  slave  to  her  lusts.  The  vicious 
sensuality  of  the  East,  the  voluptuous  degeneracy  of  an 
Oriental  court,  are  thought  to  have  found  their  most 
apparent  expression  in  the  person  of  this  unfortunate 
Queen.  Yet  what  was  there,  beyond  the  ignorant  and 
prejudiced  talk  of  her  Roman  enemies,  to  give  a  founda- 
tion to  such  an  estimate  of  her  character  ?  She  lived 
practically  as  Caesar's  wife  for  some  years,  it  being  said, 
I  believe  with  absolute  truth,  that  he  intended  to  make 
her  Empress  of  Rome  and  his  legal  consort.  After  his 
assassination  she  married  Antony,  and  cohabited  with 
him  until  the  last  days  of  her  life.  At  an  age  when  the 
legal  rights  of  marriage  were  violated  on  every  side,  when 
all  Rome  and  all  Alexandria  were  deeply  involved  in 
domestic  intrigues,  Cleopatra,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  con- 
fined her  attentions  to  the  two  men  who  in  sequence 
each  acted  towards  her  in  the  manner  of  a  legitimate 
husband,  each  being  recognised  in  Eg>'pt  as  her  divinely- 
sanctioned  consort.  The  words  of  Dion  Cassius,  which 
tell  us  that  "  no  wealth  could  satisfy  her,  and  her 
passions  were  insatiable,"  do  not  suggest  a  more  signifi- 
cant foundation  than  that  her  life  was  lived  on  extra- 
vagant and  prodigal  lines.  There  is  no  doubt  that  she 
was  open  to  the  accusations  of  her  enemies,  who  de- 
scribed her  habits  as  dissipated  and  intemperate;  but 
there  seems  to  be  little  to  indicate  that  she  was  in  any 
way  a  Delilah  or  a  Jezebel.    For  all  we  know,  she  may 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  ii 


have  been  a  very  moral  v^^oman :  certainly  she  was  the 
fond  mother  of  four  children,  a  fact  which,  even  at  that 
day,  may  be  said  to  indicate,  to  a  certain  extent,  a 
voluntary  assumption  of  the  duties  of  motherhood.  After 
due  consideration  of  all  the  evidence,  I  am  of  opinion 
that  though  her  nature  may  have  been  somewhat  volup- 
tuous, and  though  her  passions  were  not  always  under 
control,  the  best  instincts  of  her  sex  were  by  no  means 
absent ;  and  indeed,  in  her  maternal  aspect,  she  may  be 
described  as  a  really  good  woman. 

The  state  of  society  at  the  time  must  be  remembered. 
In  Rome,  as  well  as  in  Alexandria,  love  intrigues  were 
continuously  in  progress.  Mommsen,  in  writing  of  the 
moral  corruption  of  the  age,  speaks  of  the  extraordinary 
degeneracy  of  the  dancing  girl  of  the  period,  whose 
record  "  pollutes  even  the  pages  of  history."  "  But,"  he 
adds,  "their,  as  it  were,  licensed  trade  was  materially 
injured  by  the  free  act  of  the  ladies  of  aristocratic 
circles.  Liaisons  in  the  first  houses  had  become  so  fre- 
quent that  only  a  scandal  altogether  exceptional  could 
make  them  the  subject  of  special  talk,  and  judicial  interfer- 
ence seemed  now  almost  ridiculous."  Against  such  a  back- 
ground Cleopatra's  domestic  life  with  Caesar,  and  after- 
wards with  Antony,  assumes,  by  contrast,  a  fair  character 
which  is  not  without  its  refreshing  aspect.  We  see  her 
intense  and  lifelong  devotion  to  her  eldest  son  Csesarion, 
we  picture  her  busy  nursery  in  the  royal  palace,  which  at 
one  time  resounded  to  the  cries  of  a  pair  of  lusty  twins,  and 
the  vision  of  the  Oriental  voluptuary  fades  from  our  eyes. 
Can  this  dainty  little  woman,  we  ask,  who  soothes  at 
her  breast  the  cries  of  her  fat  baby,  while  three  sturdy 
youngsters  play  around  her,  be  the  sensuous  Queen  of 
the  East  ?    Can  this  tender,  ingenuous,  smiling  mother 


12       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


of  Caesar's  beloved  son  be  the  Siren  of  Egypt  ?  There  is 
not  a  particle  of  trustworthy  evidence  to  show  that 
Cleopatra  carried  on  a  single  love  affair  in  her  life  other 
than  the  two  recorded  so  dramatically  by  history,  nor  is 
there  any  evidence  to  show  that  in  those  two  affairs  she 
conducted  herself  in  a  licentious  manner. 

Cleopatra  was  in  many  ways  a  refined  and  cultured 
woman.  Her  linguistic  powers  indicate  a  certain  studi- 
ousness ;  and  at  the  same  time  she  seems  to  have  been 
a  patron  of  the  arts.  It  is  recorded  that  she  made 
Antony  .  present  to  the  city  of  Alexandria  the  library 
which  once  belonged  to  Pergamum,  consisting  of  200,000 
volumes ;  and  Cicero  seems  to  record  the  fact  that  she 
interested  herself  in  obtaining  certain  books  for  him  from 
Alexandria.  She  inherited  from  her  family  a  tempera- 
ment naturally  artistic ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  she  failed  to  carry  on  the  high  tradition 
of  her  house  in  this  regard.  She  was  a  patron  also  of 
the  sciences,  and  Photinus,  the  mathematician,  who 
wrote  both  on  arithmetic  and  geometry,  published  a 
book  actually  under  her  name,  called  the  '  Canon  of 
Cleopatra.'  The  famous  physician  Dioscorides  was,  it 
would  seem,  the  friend  and  attendant  of  the  Queen ;  and 
the  books  which  he  wrote  at  her  court  have  been  read 
throughout  the  ages.  Sosigenes,  the  astronomer,  was 
also,  perhaps,  a  friend  of  Cleopatra,  and  it  may  have 
been  through  her  good  offices  that  he  was  introduced  to 
Caesar,  with  whom  he  collaborated  in  the  reformation 
of  the  calendar.  The  evidence  is  very  inconsiderable  in 
regard  to  the  Queen's  personal  attitude  towards  the  arts 
and  sciences,  but  sufficient  may  be  gleaned  to  give  some 
support  to  the  suggestion  that  she  did  not  fall  below  the 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  13 


standard  set  by  her  forefathers.  One  feels  that  her 
interest  in  such  matters  is  assured  by  the  fact  that  she 
held  for  so  long  the  devotion  of  such  a  man  of  letters  as 
Julius  Caesar.  There  is  little  doubt  that  she  was  capable 
of  showing  great  seriousness  of  mind  when  occasion 
demanded,  and  that  her  demeanour,  so  frequently  tumul- 
tuous, was  often  thoughtful  and  quiet. 

At  the  same  time,  however,  one  must  suppose  that  she 
viewed  her  life  with  a  light  heart,  having,  save  towards 
the  end,  a  greater  familiarity  with  laughter  than  with 
tears.  She  was  at  all  times  ready  to  make  merry  or  jest, 
and  a  humorous  adventure  seems  to  have  made  a  special 
appeal  to  her.  With  Antony,  as  we  shall  see,  she  was 
wont  to  wander  around  the  city  at  night-time,  knocking 
at  people's  doors  in  the  darkness  and  running  away 
when  they  were  opened.  It  is  related  how  once  when 
Antony  was  fishing  in  the  sea,  she  made  a  diver  descend 
into  the  water  to  attach  to  his  line  a  salted  fish,  which 
he  drew  to  the  surface  amidst  the  greatest  merriment. 
One  gathers  from  the  early  writers  that  her  conversation 
was  usually  sparkling  and  gay ;  and  it  would  seem  that 
there  was  often  an  infectious  frivolity  in  her  manner 
which  made  her  society  most  exhilarating. 

She  was  eminently  a  woman  whom  men  might  love, 
for  she  was  active,  high-spirited,  plucky,  and  dashing. 
To  use  a  popular  phrase,  she  was  always  "game"  for  an 
adventure.  Her  courageous  return  to  Egypt  after  she 
had  been  driven  into  exile  by  her  brother,  is  an  indica- 
tion of  her  brave  spirit ;  and  the  daring  manner  in  which 
she  first  obtained  her  introduction  to  Caesar,  causing 
herself  to  be  carried  into  the  palace  on  a  man's  back,  is 
a  convincing  instance  of  that  audacious  courage  which 


14       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


makes  so  strong  an  appeal  on  her  behalf  to  the  imagina- 
tion. Florus,  who  was  no  friend  of  the  Queen's,  speaks 
of  her  as  being  "  free  from  all  womanly  fear." 

We  now  come  to  the  question  as  to  whether  she  was 
cruel  by  nature.  It  must  be  admitted  that  she  caused 
the  assassination  of  her  sister  Arsinoe,  and  ordered  the 
execution  of  others  who  were,  at  that  time,  plotting 
against  her.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  political 
murders  of  this  kind  were  a  custom — nay,  a  habit — of 
the  period ;  and,  moreover,  the  fact  that  the  Queen  of 
Egypt  used  her  rough  soldiers  for  the  purpose  does  not 
differentiate  the  act  from  that  of  Good  Queen  Bess  who 
employed  a  Lord  Chief  Justice  and  an  axe.  The  early 
demise  of  Ptolemy  XV.,  her  brother,  is  attributable  as 
much  to  Caesar  as  to  Cleopatra,  if,  indeed,  he  did  not 
die  a  natural  death.  The  execution  of  King  Artavasdes 
of  Armenia  was  a  political  act  of  no  great  significance. 
And  the  single  remaining  charge  of  cruelty  which  may 
be  brought  against  the  Queen,  namely,  that  she  tested 
the  efficacy  of  various  poisons  on  the  persons  of  con- 
demned criminals,  need  not  be  regarded  as  indicating 
callousness  on  her  part ;  for  it  mattered  little  to  the 
condemned  prisoner  what  manner  of  sudden  death  he 
should  die,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  discovery  of  a 
pleasant  solution  to  the  quandary  of  her  own  life  was  a 
point  of  capital  importance  to  herself.  When  we  recall 
the  painful  record  of  callous  murders  which  were  per- 
petrated during  the  reigns  of  her  predecessors,  we  cannot 
attribute  to  Cleopatra  any  extraordinary  degree  of  heart- 
lessness,  nor  can  we  say  that  she  showed  herself  to  be 
as  cruel  as  were  other  members  of  her  family.  She 
lived  in  a  ruthless  age ;  and,  on  the  whole,  her  behaviour 
was  tolerant  and  good-natured. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  15 


In  religious  matters  she  was  not,  like  so  many  persons 
of  that  period,  a  disbeliever  in  the  power  of  the  gods. 
She  had  a  strong  pagan  belief  in  the  close  association 
of  divinity  and  royalty,  and  she  seems  to  have  accepted 
without  question  the  hereditary  assurance  of  her  own 
celestial  affiliation.  She  was  wont  to  dress  herself  on 
gala  occasions  in  the  robes  of  Isis  or  Aphrodite,  and  to 
act  the  part  of  a  goddess  incarnate  upon  earth,  assuming 
not  divine  powers  but  divine  rights.  She  regarded  her- 
self as  being  closely  in  communion  with  the  virile  gods 
of  Egypt  and  Greece  ;  and  when  signs  and  wonders  were 
pointed  out  to  her  by  her  astrologers,  or  when  she  noted 
good  or  ill  omens  in  the  occurrences  around  her,  she 
was  particularly  prone  to  giving  them  full  recognition 
as  being  communications  from  her  heavenly  kin.  Her 
behaviour  at  the  battle  of  Actium  is  often  said  to  have 
been  due  to  her  consciousness  of  the  warnings  which 
she  had  received  by  means  of  such  portents ;  and  on 
other  occasions  in  her  life  her  actions  were  ordered  by 
these  means.  It  is  related  by  Josephus  that  she  violated 
the  temples  of  Egypt  in  order  to  obtain  money  to  carry 
on  the  war  against  Rome,  and  that  no  place  was  so  holy 
or  so  infamous  that  she  would  not  attempt  to  strip  it 
of  its  treasures  when  she  was  pressed  for  gold.  If  this 
be  true,  it  may  be  argued  in  the  Queen's  defence  that 
the  possessions  of  the  gods  were  considered  by  her  to 
be,  as  it  were,  her  own  property,  as  the  representative 
of  heaven  upon  earth,  and  in  this  case  they  were  the 
more  especially  at  her  disposal  since  they  were  to  be 
converted  into  money  for  the  glory  of  Egypt.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  is  probable  that  in  the  last  emergencies 
of  her  reign,  the  Queen's  agents  obtained  supplies  wher- 
ever they  found  them,  and,  if  Cleopatra  was  consulted 


i6       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


at  all,  she  was  far  too  distracted  to  give  the  matter  very 
serious  thought. 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  inquire  further  into  the 
character  of  the  Queen.  Her  personality,  as  I  see  it, 
will  become  apparent  in  the  following  record  of  her 
tragic  life.  It  is  essential  to  remember  that,  though 
her  faults  were  many,  she  was  not  what  is  usually 
called  bad.  She  was  a  brilliant,  charming,  and  beautiful 
woman ;  perhaps  not  over-scrupulous  and  yet  not  alto- 
gether unprincipled ;  ready,  no  doubt,  to  make  use  of 
her  charms,  but  not  an  immoral  character.  As  the 
historian  pictures  her  figure  moving  lightly  through  the 
mazes  of  her  life,  now  surrounded  by  her  armies  in  the 
thick  of  battle ;  now  sailing  up  the  moonlit  Nile  in  her 
royal  barge  with  Caesar  beside  her  ;  now  tenderly  playing 
in  the  nursery  with  her  babies ;  now  presiding  brilliantly 
at  the  gorgeous  feasts  in  the  Alexandrian  palace ;  now 
racing  in  disguise  down  the  side-streets  of  her  capital, 
choking  with  suppressed  laughter ;  now  speeding  across 
the  Mediterranean  to  her  doom ;  and  now,  all  haggard 
and  forlorn,  holding  the  deadly  asp  to  her  body, — he 
cannot  fail  to  fall  himself  under  the  spell  of  that  en- 
chantment by  which  the  face  of  the  world  was  changed. 
He  finds  that  he  is  dealing  not  with  a  daughter  of 
Satan,  who,  from  her  lair  in  the  East,  stretches  out  her 
hand  to  entrap  Rome's  heroes,  but  with  mighty  Caesar's 
wife  and  widow,  fighting  for  Caesar's  child ;  with  Antony's 
faithful  consort,  striving,  as  will  be  shown,  to  unite 
Egypt  and  Rome  in  one  vast  empire.  He  sees  her  not 
as  the  crowned  courtesan  of  the  Orient,  but  as  the  ex- 
cellent royal  lady,  who  by  her  wits  and  graces  held 
captive  the  two  greatest  men  of  her  time  in  the  bonds 
of  a  union  which  in  Egypt  was  equivalent  to  a  legal 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  17 


marriage.  He  sees  before  him  once  more  the  small, 
graceful  figure,  whose  beauty  compels,  whose  voice  en- 
tices, and  in  whose  face  (it  may  be  by  the  kindly 
obliterations  of  time)  there  is  no  apparent  evil ;  and  the 
unprejudiced  historian  must  find  himself  hard  put  to  it 
to  say  whether  his  sympathies  are  ranged  on  the  side 
of  Cleopatra  or  on  that  of  her  Roman  rival  in  the  great 
struggle  for  the  mastery  of  the  whole  earth  which  is 
recorded  in  the  following  pages. 


B 


i8 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  CITY  OF  ALEXANDRIA. 

No  Study  of  the  life  of  Cleopatra  can  be  of  true  value 
unless  the  position  of  the  city  of  Alexandria,  her  capital, 
in  relationship  to  Egypt  on  the  one  hand  and  to  Greece 
and  Rome  on  the  other,  is  fully  understood  and  appreci- 
ated. The  reader  must  remember,  and  bear  continually 
in  mind,  that  Alexandria  was  at  that  time,  and  still  is, 
more  closely  connected  in  many  ways  with  the  Medi- 
terranean kingdoms  than  with  Egypt  proper.  It  bore, 
geographically,  no  closer  relation  to  the  Nile  valley  than 
Carthage  bore  to  the  interior  of  North  Africa.  Indeed, 
to  some  extent  it  is  legitimate  in  considering  Alexandria 
to  allow  the  thoughts  to  find  a  parallel  in  the  relation- 
ship of  Philadelphia  to  the  interior  of  America  in  the 
seventeenth  century  or  of  Bombay  to  India  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  for  in  these  cases  we  see  a  foreign  settle- 
ment, representative  of  a  progressive  civilisation,  largely 
dependent  on  transmarine  shipping  for  its  prosperity, 
set  down  on  the  coast  of  a  country  whose  habits  are 
obsolete.  It  is  almost  as  incorrect  to  class  the  Alexan- 
drian Queen  Cleopatra  as  a  native  Egyptian  as  it  would 
be  to  imagine  William  Penn  as  a  Red  Indian  or  Warren 
Hastings  as  a  Hindoo.    Cleopatra  in  Alexandria  was  cut 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  19 


off  from  Egypt.  There  is  no  evidence  that  she  ever  even 
saw  the  Sphinx,  and  it  would  seem  that  the  single  journey 
up  the  Nile  of  which  the  history  of  her  reign  gives  us 
any  record  was  undertaken  by  her  solely  at  the  desire 
of  Caesar.  Bearing  this  fact  in  mind,  I  do  not  think 
it  is  desirable  for  me  to  refer  at  any  length  to  the 
affairs,  or  to  the  manners  and  customs,  of  Egypt  proper 
in  this  volume;  and  it  will  be  observed  that,  in  order 
to  avoid  giving  to  events  here  recorded  an  Egyptian 
character  which  in  reality  they  did  not  possess  in  any 
very  noticeable  degree,  I  have  refrained  from  introducing 
any  account  of  the  people  who  lived  in  the  great  country 
behind  Alexandria  over  which  Cleopatra  reigned. 

The  topographical  position  of  Alexandria,  selected  by 
its  illustrious  founder,  seems  to  have  been  chosen  on 
account  of  its  detachment  from  Egypt  proper.  The 
city  was  erected  upon  a  strip  of  land  having  the  Medi- 
terranean on  the  one  side  and  the  Mareotic  lake  on  the 
other.  It  was  thus  cut  off  from  the  hinterland  far  more 
effectively  even  than  was  Carthage  by  its  semicircle  of 
hills.  Alexander  had  intended  to  make  the  city  a  purely 
Greek  settlement,  the  port  at  which  the  Greeks  should 
land  their  goods  for  distribution  throughout  Egypt,  and 
whence  the  produce  of  the  abundant  Nile  should  be 
shipped  to  the  north  and  west.  He  selected  a  remote 
corner  of  the  Delta  for  his  site,  with  the  plain  intention 
of  holding  his  city  at  once  free  of,  and  in  dominion  over, 
Egypt ;  and  so  precisely  was  the  location  suited  to  his 
purpose  that  until  this  day  Alexandria  is  in  little  more 
than  name  a  city  of  the  Egyptians.  Even  at  the  present 
time,  when  an  excellent  system  of  express  railway  trains 
connects  Alexandria  with  Cairo  and  Upper  Egypt,  there 
are  many  well-to-do  inhabitants  who  have  not  seen  more 


20       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


that  ten  miles  of  Egyptian  landscape ;  and  the  vast 
majority  have  never  been  within  sight  of  the  Pyramids. 
The  vi^ealthy  foreigners  settled  in  Alexandria  often  know 
nothing  whatsoever  about  Egypt,  and  Cairo  itself  is 
beyond  their  ken.  The  Greeks,  Levantines,  and  Jews, 
who  now,  as  in  ancient  days,  form  a  very  large  part  of 
the  population  of  Alexandria,  would  shed  bitter  tears  of 
gloomy  foreboding  were  they  called  upon  to  penetrate 
into  the  Egypt  which  the  tourists  and  the  officials  know 
and  love.  The  middle-class  Egyptians  of  Alexandria  are 
rarely  tempted  to  enter  Egypt  proper,  and  even  those 
who  have  inherited  a  few  acres  of  land  in  the  interior 
are  often  unwilling  to  visit  their  property. 

Egypt   as  we   know  it   is  a  terra  incognita  to  the 
Alexandrian.     The   towering  cliffs  of  the  desert,  the 
wide  Nile,  the  rainless  skies,  the  amazing  brilliance 
of  the  stars,  the  ruins  of  ancient  temples,  the  great 
pyramids,  the  decorated  tombs,  the  clustered  mud-huts 
of  the  villages  in  the  shade  of  the  dom-palms  and  the 
sycamores,  the  creaking  sakkiehs  or  water  -  wheels,  the 
gracefully  worked  shadufs  or  water-hoists, — all  these  are 
unknown  to  the  inhabitants  of  Alexandria.    They  have 
never  seen  the  hot  deserts  and  the  white  camel-tracks 
over  the  hills,  they  have   not   looked  upon  the  Nile 
tumbling  over  the  granite  rocks  of  the  cataracts,  nor 
have  they  watched  the  broad  expanse  of  the  inunda- 
tion.   That  peculiar,  undefined  aspect  and  feeling  which 
is  associated  with  the  thought  of  Egypt  in  the  minds 
of  visitors  and  residents  does  not  tincture  the  impres- 
sion  of  the  Alexandrians.     They  have   not   felt  the 
subtle  influence  of  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs :  they  are 
sons  of  the  Mediterranean,  not  children  of  the  Nile. 

The  climate  of  Alexandria  is  very  different  from  that 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  21 


of  the  interior  of  the  Delta,  and  bears  no  similarity  to 
that  of  Upper  Egypt.  At  Thebes  the  winter  days  are 
warm  and  briUiantly  sunny,  the  nights  often  extremely 
cold.  The  summer  climate  is  intensely  hot,  and  there 
are  times  when  the  resident  might  there  believe  himself 
an  inhabitant  of  the  infernal  regions.  The  temperature 
in  and  around  Cairo  is  more  moderate,  and  the  summer 
is  tolerable,  though  by  no  means  pleasant.  In  Alex- 
andria, however,  the  summer  is  cool  and  temperate. 
There  is  perhaps  no  climate  in  the  entire  world  so 
perfect  as  that  of  Alexandria  in  the  early  summer.  The 
days  are  cloudless,  breezy,  and  brilliant ;  the  nights  cool 
and  even  cold.  In  August  and  September  it  is  some- 
what damp,  and  therefore  unpleasant ;  but  it  is  never 
very  hot,  and  the  conditions  of  life  are  almost  precisely 
those  of  southern  Europe. 

The  winter  days  on  the  sea-coast  are  often  cold  and 
rainy,  the  climate  being  not  unlike  that  of  Italy  at  the 
same  time  of  year.  People  must  needs  wear  thick 
clothing,  and  must  study  the  barometer  before  taking 
their  promenades.  While  Thebes,  and  even  the  Pyra- 
mids, bask  in  more  or  less  continual  sunshine,  the  city 
of  Alexandria  is  lashed  by  intermittent  rainstorms,  and 
the  salt  sea-wind  buffets  the  pedestrians  as  it  screams 
down  the  paved  streets.  The  peculiar  texture  of  the  true 
Egyptian  atmosphere  is  not  felt  in  Alexandria :  the  air  is 
that  of  Marseilles,  of  Naples,  or  of  the  Piraeus. 

In  summer-time  the  sweating  official  of  the  south 
makes  his  way  seaward  in  the  spirit  of  one  who  leaves 
the  tropics  for  northern  shores.  He  enters  the  north- 
bound express  on  some  stifling  evening  in  June,  the 
amazing  heat  still  radiating  from  the  frowning  cliffs  of 
the  desert,  and   striking  up  into   his   eyes  from  the 


22       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


parched  earth  around  the  station.    He  lies  tossing  and 
panting  in  his  berth  while  the  electric  fans  beat  down 
the  hot  air  upon  him,  until  the  more  temperate  midnight 
permits  him  to  fall  into  a  restless  sleep.    In  the  morning 
he  arrives  at  Cairo,  where  the  moisture  runs  more  freely 
from  his  face  by  reason  of  the  greater  humidity,  though 
now  the  startling  intensity  of  the  heat  is  not  felt.  Anon 
he  travels  through  the  Delta  towards  the  north,  still 
mopping  his  brow  as  the  morning  sun  bursts  into  the 
carriage.    But  suddenly,  a  few  miles  from  the  coast,  a 
change  is  felt.     For  the  first  time,  perhaps  for  many 
weeks,  he  feels  cool :  he  wishes  his  clothes  were  not 
so  thin.     He  packs  up  his  helmet  and  dons  a  straw 
hat.    Arriving  at  Alexandria,  he  is  amused  to  find  that 
he  actually  feels  chilly.    He  no  longer  dreads  to  move 
abroad  in  the  sun  at  high  noon,  but,  waving  aside  the 
importunate  carriage  -  drivers,  he  walks  briskly  to  his 
hotel.     He   does   not   sit   in  a  darkened  room  with 
windows  tightly  shut  against  the  heat,  but  pulls  the 
chair  out  on  to  the  verandah  to  take  the  air;  and  at 
night  he  does  not  lie  stark  naked  on  his  bed  in  the 
garden,  cursing  the  imagined  heat  of  the  stars  and  the 
moon,  and  praying  for  the  mercy  of  sleep ;  but,  like  a 
white  man  in  his  own  land,  he  tucks  himself  up  under 
a  blanket  in  the  cool  bedroom,  and  awakes  lively  and 
refreshed. 

A  European  may  live  the  year  round  at  Alexandria, 
and  may  express  a  preference  for  the  summer.  The 
wives  and  children  of  English  officials  not  infrequently 
remain  there  throughout  the  warmer  months,  not  from 
necessity  but  from  choice ;  and  there  are  many  persons 
of  northern  blood  who  are  happy  to  call  it  their  home. 
In  Cairo  such  families  rarely  remain  during  the  summer, 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  23 


unless  under  compulsion,  while  in  Upper  Egypt  there  is 
hardly  a  white  woman  in  the  land  between  May  and 
October.  Egypt  is  considered  by  them  to  be  solely  a 
winter  residence,  and  the  official  is  of  opinion  that  he 
pays  toll  to  fortune  for  the  pleasures  of  the  winter 
season  by  the  perils  and  torments  of  the  summer 
months.  Even  the  middle  and  upper  class  Egyptians 
themselves,  recruited,  as  they  generally  are  in  official 
circles,  from  Cairo,  suffer  terribly  from  the  heat  in  the 
south — often  more  so,  indeed,  than  the  English ;  and  I 
myself  on  more  than  one  occasion  have  had  to  abandon 
a  summer  day's  ride  owing  to  the  prostration  of  one 
of  the  native  staff. 

The  Egyptian  of  Alexandria  and  the  north  looks  with 
scorn  upon  the  inhabitants  of  the  upper  country.  The 
southerner,  on  the  other  hand,  has  no  epithet  of  con- 
tempt more  biting  than  that  of  "Alexandrian."  To 
the  hardy  peasant  of  the  Thebaid  the  term  means  all 
that  "  scalliwag "  denotes  to  us.  The  northern  Egyp- 
tian, unmindful  of  the  relationship  of  a  kettle  to  a 
saucepan,  calls  the  southerner  "  black "  in  disdainful 
tones.  A  certain  Alexandrian  Egyptian  of  undiluted 
native  stock,  who  was  an  official  in  a  southern  district, 
told  me  that  he  found  life  very  dull  in  his  provincial 
capital,  surrounded  as  he  was  by  "  all  these  confounded 
niggers."  And  if  the  Egyptians  of  Alexandria  are  thus 
estranged  from  those  who  constitute  the  backbone  of 
the  Egyptian  nation,  it  will  be  understood  how  great 
is  the  gulf  between  the  Greeks  or  other  foreign  residents 
in  that  city  and  the  bulk  of  the  people  of  the  Nile. 

I  am  quite  sure  that  Cleopatra  spoke  of  the  Egyptians 
of  the  interior  as  "  confounded  niggers."  Her  interests 
and  sympathies,  like  those  of  her  city,  were  directed 


24       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


across  the  Mediterranean.  She  held  no  more  intimate 
relationship  to  Egypt  than  does  the  London  millionaire 
to  the  African  gold-mines  which  he  owns.  Alexandria 
at  the  present  day  still  preserves  the  European  character 
with  which  it  was  endowed  by  Alexander  and  the 
Ptolemies ;  or  perhaps  it  were  more  correct  to  say  that 
it  has  once  more  assumed  that  character.  There  are 
large  quarters  of  the  city,  of  course,  which  are  native 
in  style  and  appearance,  but,  viewed  as  a  whole,  it 
suggests  to  the  eye  rather  an  Italian  than  an  Egyptian 
seaport.  It  has  extremely  little  in  common  with  the 
Egyptian  metropolis  and  other  cities  of  the  Nile ;  and 
we  are  aware  that  there  was  no  greater  similarity  in 
ancient  times.  The  very  flowers  and  trees  are  different. 
In  Upper  Egypt  the  gardens  have  a  somewhat  artificial 
beauty,  for  the  grace  of  the  land  is  more  dependent 
upon  the  composition  of  cliffs,  river,  and  fields.  There 
are  few  wild -flowers,  and  little  natural  grass.  In  the 
gardens  the  flowers  are  evident  importations,  while  the 
lawns  have  to  be  sown  every  autumn,  and  do  not  survive 
the  summer.  But  in  Alexandria  there  is  always  a  blaze 
of  flowers,  and  one  notes  with  surprise  the  English 
hollyhocks,  foxgloves,  and  stocks  growing  side  by  side 
with  the  plants  of  southern  Europe.  In  the  fields  of 
Mariout,  over  against  Alexandria,  the  wild -flowers  in 
spring  are  those  of  the  hills  of  Greece.  Touched  by 
the  cool  breeze  from  the  sea,  one  walks  over  ground 
scarlet  and  gold  with  poppies  and  daisies ;  there  bloom 
asphodel  and  iris ;  and  the  ranunculus  grows  to  the  size 
of  a  tulip.  There  is  a  daintiness  in  these  fields  and 
gardens  wholly  un-Egyptian,  completely  different  from 
the  more  permanent  grace  of  the  south.  One  feels 
that  Pharaoh  walked  not  in  fields  of  asphodel,  that 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  25 


Amon  had  no  dominion  here  amidst  the  poppies  by 
the  sea.  One  is  transplanted  in  imagination  to  Greece 
and  to  Italy,  and  the  knowledge  becomes  the  more 
apparent  that  Cleopatra  and  her  city  were  an  integral 
part  of  European  life,  only  slightly  touched  by  the  very 
finger-tips  of  the  Orient. 

The  coast  of  Egypt  rises  so  little  above  the  level  of  the 
Mediterranean  that  the  land  cannot  be  seen  by  those 
approaching  it  from  across  the  sea,  until  but  a  few  miles 
separate  them  from  the  surf  which  breaks  upon  the  sand 
and  rocks  of  that  barren  shore.  The  mountains  of  other 
East  -  Mediterranean  countries  —  Greece,  Italy,  Sicily, 
Crete,  Cyprus,  and  Syria — rising  out  of  the  blue  waters, 
served  as  landmarks  for  the  mariners  of  ancient  days,  and 
were  discernible  upon  the  horizon  for  many  long  hours 
before  wind  or  oars  carried  the  vessels  in  under  their  lee. 
But  the  Egyptian  coast  offered  no  such  assistance  to  the 
captains  of  sea-going  galleys,  and  they  were  often  obliged 
to  approach  closely  to  the  treacherous  shore  before  their 
exact  whereabouts  became  apparent  to  them.  The  city 
of  Alexandria  was  largely  hidden  from  view  by  the  long, 
low  island  of  Pharos,  which  lay  in  front  of  it  and  which 
was  little  dissimilar  in  appearance  from  the  mainland.^ 
Two  promontories  of  land  projected  from  the  coast 
opposite  either  end  of  the  island;  and,  these  being 
lengthened  by  the  building  of  breakwaters,  the  straits 
between  Pharos  Island  and  the  mainland  were  converted 
into  an  excellent  harbour,  both  it  and  the  main  part  of 
the  city  being  screened  from  the  open  sea.  There  was 
one  tremendous  landmark,  however,  which  served  to 
direct  all  vessels  to  their  destination,  namely,  the  far- 
famed  Pharos  lighthouse,  standing  upon  the  east  end  of 

^  This  island  has  now  become  part  of  the  mainland. 


26      LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


the  island,  and  overshadowing  the  main  entrance  to  the 
port.^  It  had  been  built  during  the  reign  of  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus  by  Sostratus  of  Cnidus  two  hundred  years 
and  more  before  the  days  of  Cleopatra,  and  it  ranked  as 
one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world.  It  was  constructed  of 
white  marble,  and  rose  to  a  height  of  400  ells,  or  590  feet. 
By  day  it  stood  like  a  pillar  of  alabaster,  gleaming  against 
the  leaden  haze  of  the  sky ;  and  from  nightfall  until  dawn 
there  shone  from  its  summit  a  powerful  beacon -light 
which  could  be  seen,  it  is  said,^  for  300  stadia,  i.e.,  34 
miles,  across  the  waters. 

The  harbour  was  divided  into  two  almost  equal  parts 
by  a  great  embankment,  known  as  the  Heptastadium, 
which  joined  the  city  to  the  island.  This  was  cut  at 
either  end  by  a  passage  or  waterway  leading  from  one 
harbour  to  the  other,  but  these  two  passages  were 
bridged  over,  and  thus  a  clear  causeway  was  formed, 
seven  stadia,  or  1400  yards,  in  length.  To  the  west  of 
this  embankment  lay  the  Harbour  of  Eunostos,  or  the 
Happy  Return,  which  was  entered  from  behind  the 
western  extremity  of  Pharos  Island ;  while  to  the  east 
of  the  embankment  lay  the  Great  Harbour,  the  entrance 
to  which  passed  between  the  enormous  lighthouse  and 
the  Diabathra,  or  breakwater,  built  out  from  the  pro- 
montory known  as  Lochias.  This  entrance  was 
dangerous,  owing  to  the  narrowness  of  the  fairway  and 
to  the  presence  of  rocks,  against  which  the  rolling  waves 
of  the  Mediterranean,  driven  by  the  prevalent  winds  of 
the  north,  beat  with  almost  continuous  violence. 

A  vessel  entering  the  port  of  Alexandria  from  this  side 
was  steered  towards  the  great  lighthouse,  around  the  foot 

^  For  a  restoration  of  the  lighthouse,  see  the  work  of  H.  Thiersch. 
^  Josephus. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  27 


of  which  the  waves  leapt  and  broke  in  showers  of  white 
foam.    Skirting  the  dark  rocks  at  the  base  of  this  marble 
wonder,  the  vessel  slipped  through  the  passage  into  the 
still  entrance  of  the  harbour,  leaving  the  breakwater  on 
the  left  hand.    Here,  on  a  windless  day,  one  might  look 
down  to  the  sand  and  the  rocks  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea, 
so  clear  and  transparent  was  the  water  and  so  able  to  be 
penetrated  by  the  strong  light  of  the  sun.    Seaweed  of 
unaccustomed  hues  covered  the  sunken  rocks  over  which 
the  vessels  floated ;  and  anemones,  like  great  flowers, 
could  be  seen  swaying  in  the  gentle  motion  of  the  under- 
currents.  Passing  on  into  the  deeper  water  of  the  harbour, 
in  which  the  sleek  dolphins  arose  and  dived  in  rhythmic 
succession,  the  traveller  saw  before  him  such  an  array  of 
palaces  and  public  buildings  as  could  be  found  nowhere 
else  in  the  world.    There  stood,  on  his  left  hand,  the 
Royal  Palace,  which  was  spread  over  the  Lochias  Pro- 
montory and  extended  round  towards  the  west.  Here, 
beside  a  little  island  known  as  Antirrhodos,  itself  the  site 
of  a  royal  pavilion,  lay  the  Royal  Harbour,  where  flights 
of  broad  steps  descended  into  the  azure  water,  which  at 
this  point  was  so  deep  that  the  largest  galleys  might 
moor  against  the  quays.    Along  the  edge  of  the  main- 
land, overlooking  the  Great  Harbour,  stood  a  series  of 
magnificent  buildings  which  must  have  deeply  impressed 
all  those  who  were  approaching  the  city  across  the  water. 
Here  stood  the  imposing  Museum,  which  was  actually  a 
part  of  another  palace,  and  which  formed  a  kind  of 
institute  for  the  study  of  the  sciences,  presided  over  by  a 
priest  appointed  by  the  sovereign.    The  buildings  seem 
to  have  consisted  of  a  large  hall  wherein  the  professors 
took  their  meals;  a  series  of  arcades  in  which  these  men 
of  learning  walked  and  talked ;  a  hall,  or  assembly  rooms, 


28       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


in  which  their  lectures  were  held ;  and,  at  the  north  end, 
close  to  the  sea,  the  famous  library,  at  this  time  contain- 
ing more  than  half  a  million  scrolls.  On  rising  ground 
between  the  Museum  and  the  Lochias  Promontory  stood 
the  Theatre,  wherein  those  who  occupied  the  higher 
seats  might  look  beyond  the  stage  to  the  island  of 
Antirrhodos,  behind  which  the  incoming  galleys  rode 
upon  the  blue  waters  in  the  shadow  of  Pharos.  At  the 
back  of  the  Theatre,  on  still  higher  ground,  the  Paneum, 
or  Temple  of  Pan,  had  been  erected.  This  is  described 
by  Strabo  as  "an  artificial  mound  of  the  shape  of  a  fir- 
cone, resembling  a  pile  of  rock,  to  the  top  of  which  there 
is  an  ascent  by  a  spiral  path,  from  whose  summit  may  be 
seen  the  whole  city  lying  all  around  and  beneath  it."  To 
the  west  of  this  mound  stood  the  Gymnasium,  a  superb 
building,  the  porticos  of  which  alone  exceeded  a  stadium, 
or  200  yards,  in  length.  The  Courts  of  Justice,  sur- 
rounded by  groves  and  gardens,  adjoined  the  Gymnasium. 
Close  to  the  harbour,  to  the  west  of  the  Theatre,  was  the 
Forum ;  and  in  front  of  it,  on  the  quay,  stood  a  temple  of 
Neptune.  To  the  west  of  this,  near  the  Museum,  there 
was  an  enclosure  called  Sema,  in  which  stood  the  tombs 
of  the  Ptolemaic  Kings  of  Eg}?pt,  built  around  the  famous 
Mausoleum  wherein  the  bones  of  Alexander  the  Great 
rested  in  a  sarcophagus  of  alabaster.^ 

These  buildings,  all  able  to  be  seen  from  the  harbour, 
formed  the  quarter  of  the  city  known  as  the  Regia, 
Brucheion,  or  Royal  Area.  Here  the  white  stone 
structures  reflected  in  the  mirror  of  the  harbour,  the 
statues  and  monuments,  the  trees  and  brilliant  flower- 

'  The  first  Ptolemy  brought  the  body  of  Alexander  to  Alexandria,  and  de- 
posited it,  so  it  is  said,  in  a  golden  sarcophagus  ;  but  this  was  believed  to  have 
been  stolen,  and  the  alabaster  one  substituted. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  29 


gardens,  the  flights  of  marble  steps  passing  down  to  the 
sea,  the  broad  streets  and  public  places,  must  have 
formed  a  scene  of  magnificence  not  surpassed  at  that 
time  in  the  whole  world.  Nor  would  the  traveller,  upon 
stepping  ashore  from  his  vessel,  be  disappointed  in  his 
expectations  as  he  roamed  the  streets  of  the  town. 
Passing  through  the  Forum  he  would  come  out  upon 
the  great  thoroughfare,  more  than  three  miles  long, 
which  cut  right  through  the  length  of  the  city  in  a 
straight  line,  from  the  Gate  of  the  Necropolis,  at  the 
western  end,  behind  the  Harbour  of  the  Happy  Return, 
to  the  Gate  of  Canopus,  at  the  eastern  extremity,  some 
distance  behind  the  Lochias  Promontory.  This  mag- 
nificent boulevard,  known  as  the  Street  of  Canopus,  or 
the  Meson  Pedion,  was  flanked  on  either  side  by  colon- 
nades, and  was  100  feet  in  breadth.^  On  its  north  side 
would  be  seen  the  Museum,  the  Sema,  the  palaces,  and 
the  gardens ;  on  the  south  side  the  Gymnasium  with  its 
long  porticos,  the  Paneum  towering  up  against  the  sky, 
and  numerous  temples  and  public  places.  Were  the 
traveller  to  walk  eastwards  along  this  street  he  would 
pass  through  the  Jewish  quarter,  adorned  by  many 
synagogues  and  national  buildings,  through  the  Gate 
of  Canopus,  built  in  the  city  walls,  and  so  out  on  to  open 
ground,  where  stood  the  Hippodromos  or  Racecourse, 
and  several  public  buildings.  Here  the  sun-baked  soil 
was  sandy,  the  rocks  glaring  white,  and  but  little  turf  was 
to  be  seen.  A  few  palms,  bent  southward  by  the  sea 
wind,  and  here  and  there  a  cluster  of  acacias,  gave  shade 
to  pedestrians ;  while  between  the  road  and  the  sea  the 
Grove  of  Nemesis  offered  a  pleasant  foreground  to  the 
sandy  beach  and  the  blue  expanse  of  the  Mediterranean 

^  Surely  not  200  feet,  as  is  sometimes  said. 


30       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


beyond.  Near  by  stood  the  little  settlement  of  Eleusis, 
which  was  given  over  to  festivities  and  merry-making. 
Here  there  were  several  restaurants  and  houses  of  enter- 
tainment which  are  said  to  have  commanded  beautiful 
views;  but  so  noisy  was  the  fun  supplied,  and  so  dis- 
solute the  manners  of  those  who  frequented  the  place, 
that  better-class  Alexandrians  were  inclined  to  avoid  it. 
At  a  distance  of  some  three  miles  from  Alexandria  stood 
the  suburb  of  Nicopolis,  where  numerous  villas,  them- 
selves "  not  less  than  a  city,"  says  Strabo,^  had  been 
erected  along  the  sea-front,  and  the  sands  in  summer- 
time were  crowded  with  bathers.  Farther  eastwards  the 
continuation  of  the  Street  of  Canopus  passed  on  to  the 
town  of  that  name  and  Egypt  proper. 

Returning  within  the  city  walls  and  walking  westwards 
along  the  Street  of  Canopus,  the  visitor  would  pass 
once  more  through  the  Regia  and  thence  through  the 
Egyptian  quarter  known  as  Rhakotis,  to  the  western 
boundary.  This  quarter,  being  immediately  behind  the 
commercial  harbour,  was  partly  occupied  by  warehouses 
and  ships'  offices,  and  was  always  a  very  busy  district 
of  the  town.  Here  there  was  an  inner  harbour  called 
Cibotos,  or  the  Ark,  where  there  were  extensive  docks ; 
and  from  this  a  canal  passed,  under  the  Street  of  Canopus, 
to  the  lake  at  the  back  of  the  city.  On  a  rocky  hill 
behind  the  Rhakotis  quarter  stood  the  magnificent 
Serapeum,  or  Temple  of  Serapis,  which  was  approached 
by  a  broad  street  running  at  right  angles  to  the  Street 
of  Canopus,  which  it  bisected  at  a  point  not  far  west  of 
the  Museum,  being  a  continuation  of  the  Heptastadium. 
The  temple  is  said  to  have  been  surpassed  in  grandeur 
by  no  other  building  in  the  world  except  the  Capitol 

^  Some  years  later,  after  it  had  been  popularised  by  Augustus. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  31 


at  Rome ;  and,  standing  as  it  did  at  a  considerable 
elevation,  it  must  have  towered  above  the  hubbub  and 
the  denser  atmosphere  of  the  streets  and  houses  at  its 
foot,  as  though  to  receive  the  purification  of  the  untainted 
wind  of  the  sea.  Behind  the  temple,  on  the  open  rocky 
ground  outside  the  city  walls,  stood  the  Stadium  ;  and 
away  towards  the  west  the  Necropolis  was  spread  out, 
with  its  numerous  gardens  and  mausoleums.  Still  farther 
westward  there  were  numerous  villas  and  gardens ;  and 
it  may  be  that  the  wonderful  flowers  which  at  the  present 
day  grow  wild  upon  this  ground  are  actually  the  descend- 
ants of  those  introduced  and  cultivated  by  the  Greeks  of 
the  days  of  Cleopatra. 

Along  the  entire  length  of  the  back  walls  of  the  city 
lay  the  Lake  of  Mareotis,  which  cut  off  Alexandria  from 
the  Egyptian  Delta,  and  across  this  stretch  of  water 
vast  numbers  of  vessels  brought  the  produce  of  Egypt 
to  the  capital.  The  lake  harbour  and  docks  were  built 
around  an  inlet  which  penetrated  some  considerable 
distance  into  the  heart  of  the  city  not  far  to  the  east 
of  the  Paneum,  and  from  them  a  great  colonnaded 
thoroughfare,  as  wide  as  the  Street  of  Canopus,  which 
it  crossed  at  right  angles,  passed  through  the  city  to 
the  Great  Harbour,  being  terminated  at  the  south  end 
by  the  Gate  of  the  Sun,  and  at  the  north  end  by  the 
Gate  of  the  Moon.  These  lake  docks  are  said  to  have 
been  richer  and  more  important  even  than  the  maritime 
docks  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  town  ;  for  over  the 
lake  the  traffic  of  vessels  coming  by  river  and  canal 
from  all  parts  of  Egypt  was  always  greater  than  the 
shipping  across  the  Mediterranean.  The  shores  of  this 
inland  sea  were  exuberantly  fertile.  A  certain  amount  of 
papyrus  grew  at  the  edges  of  the  lake,  considerable  stretches 


32       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


of  water  being  covered  by  the  densely  -  growing  reeds. 
The  Alexandrians  were  wont  to  use  the  plantations  for 
their  picnics,  penetrating  in  small  boats  into  the  thickest 
part  of  the  reeds,  where  they  were  overshadowed  by  the 
leaves,  which,  also,  they  used  as  dishes  and  drinking- 
vessels.  Extensive  vineyards  and  fruit  gardens  flourished 
at  the  edge  of  the  water ;  and  there  are  said  to  have  been 
eight  islands  which  rose  from  the  placid  surface  of  the 
lake  and  were  covered  by  luxuriant  gardens. 

Strabo  tells  us  that  Alexandria  contained  extremely 
beautiful  public  parks  and  grounds,  and  abounded 
with  magnificent  buildings  of  all  kinds.  The  whole 
city  was  intersected  by  roads  wide  enough  for  the 
passage  of  chariots ;  and,  as  has  been  said,  the  three 
main  streets,  those  leading  to  the  Gate  of  Canopus, 
to  the  Serapeum,  and  to  the  Lake  Harbour,  were  par- 
ticularly noteworthy  both  for  their  breadth  and  length. 
Indeed,  in  the  Fifteenth  Idyll  of  Theocritus,  one  of  the 
characters  complains  most  bitterly  of  the  excessive  length 
of  the  Alexandrian  streets.  The  kings  of  the  Ptolemaic 
dynasty,  for  nearly  three  centuries,  had  expended  vast 
sums  in  the  beautification  of  their  capital,  and  at  the 
period  with  which  we  are  now  dealing  it  had  become  the 
rival  of  Rome  in  magnificence  and  luxury.  The  novelist, 
Achilles  Tatius,  writing  some  centuries  later,  when  many 
of  the  Ptolemaic  edifices  had  been  replaced  by  Roman 
constructions  perhaps  of  less  merit,  cried,  as  he  beheld 
the  city,  "We  are  vanquished,  mine  eyes";  and  there 
is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  his  words  were  no 
unlicensed  exaggeration.  In  the  brilliant  sunshine  of 
the  majority  of  Egyptian  days,  the  stately  palaces, 
temples,  and  public  buildings  which  reflected  themselves 
in  the  waters  of  the  harbour,  or  cast  their  shadows  across 


THE  PAINTING  DATES  FROM  A  GENERATION  LATER  THAN  THAT  OF  CLEOPATRA, 
BUT  IT  IS  AN  EXAMPLE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  ARTISTS. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  33 


the  magnificent  Street  of  Canopus^  must  have  dazzled 
the  eyes  of  the  spectator  and  brought  wonder  into  his 
heart. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  city  were  not  altogether  worthy 
of  their  splendid  home.  In  modern  times  the  people 
of  Alexandria  exhibit  much  the  same  conglomeration  of 
nationalities  as  they  did  in  ancient  days ;  but  the  dis- 
tinguishing line  between  Egyptians  and  Europeans  is 
now  more  sharply  defined  than  it  was  in  the  reign  of 
Cleopatra,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  former  are  mostly 
Mohammedans  and  the  latter  Christians,  no  marriage 
being  permitted  between  them.  In  Ptolemaic  times 
only  the  Jews  of  Alexandria  stood  outside  the  circle  of 
international  marriages  which  was  gradually  forming  the 
people  of  the  city  into  a  single  type ;  for  they  alone 
practised  that  conventional  exclusiveness  which  indicated 
a  strong  religious  conviction.  The  Greek  element,  al- 
ways predominant  in  the  city,  was  mainly  Macedonian ; 
but  in  the  period  we  are  now  studying  so  many  inter- 
marriages with  Egyptians  had  taken  place  that  in  the 
case  of  a  large  number  of  families  the  stock  was  much 
mixed.  There  must  have  been,  of  course,  a  certain 
number  of  aristocratic  houses,  descended  from  the 
Macedonian  soldiers  and  officials  who  had  come  to 
Egypt  with  Alexander  the  Great  and  the  first  Ptolemy, 
whose  blood  had  been  kept  pure ;  and  we  hear  of  such 
persons  boasting  of  their  nationality,  though  the  ruin 
of  their  fatherland  and  its  subservience  to  Rome  had 
left  them  little  of  which  to  be  proud.  In  like  manner 
there  must  have  been  many  pure  Egyptian  families,  no 
less  proud  of  their  nationality  than  were  the  Macedonians. 
The  majority  of  educated  people  could  now  speak  both 
the    Greek   and    Egyptian    tongues,    and   all  official 

c 


34       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


decrees  and  proclamations  were  published  in  both  lan- 
guages. Many  Greeks  assumed  Egyptian  names  in 
addition  to  their  own ;  and  it  is  probable  that  there 
were  at  this  date  Egyptians  who,  in  like  manner,  adopted 
Greek  names. 

Besides  Greeks  and  Egyptians,  there  were  numerous 
Italians,  Cretans,  Phoenicians,  Cilicians,  Cypriots, 
Persians,  Syrians,  Armenians,  Arabs,  and  persons  of 
other  nationalities,  who  had,  to  some  extent,  inter- 
married with  Alexandrian  families,  thus  producing  a 
stock  which  must  have  been  much  like  that  to  be  found 
in  the  city  at  the  present  day  and  now  termed  Levantine. 
Some  of  these  had  come  to  Alexandria  originally  as 
respectable  merchants  and  traders ;  others  were  sailors, 
and,  indeed,  pirates;  yet  others  were  escaped  slaves, 
outlaws,  criminals,  and  debtors  who  were  allowed  to  enter 
Alexandria  on  condition  that  they  served  in  the  army ; 
while  not  a  few  were  soldiers  of  fortune  who  had  been 
enrolled  in  the  forces  of  Egypt.  There  was  a  standing 
army  of  these  mercenaries  in  Alexandria,  and  Polybius, 
writing  of  the  days  of  Cleopatra's  great  -  grandfather, 
Ptolemy  IX.,  speaks  of  them  as  being  oppressive  and 
dissolute,  desiring  to  rule  rather  than  to  obey.  A  further 
introduction  of  foreign  blood  was  due  to  the  presence 
of  the  Gabinian  Army  of  Occupation,  the  members  of 
which  had  settled  down  in  Alexandria  and  had  married 
Alexandrian  women.  These  soldiers  were  largely  drawn 
from  Germany  and  Gaul ;  and  though  there  had  not  yet 
been  time  for  them  to  do  more  than  add  a  horde  of  half- 
cast  children  to  the  medley,  their  own  presence  in  the 
city  contributed  strikingly  to  the  cosmopolitan  character 
of  the  streets.  This  barbaric  force,  with  its  Roman 
officers,  must  have  been  in  constant  rivalry  with  the 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  35 


so-called  Macedonian  Household  Troops  which  guarded 
the  palace ;  but  when  Cleopatra  came  to  the  throne  the 
latter  force  had  already  been  freely  recruited  from  all 
the  riff-raff  of  the  world,  and  was  in  no  way  a  match 
for  the  northerners. 

The  aristocracy  of  Alexandria  probably  consisted  of 
the  cosmopolitan  officers  of  the  mercenaries  and  House- 
hold Troops,  the  Roman  officers  of  the  Gabinian  army,  the 
Macedonian  courtiers,  the  Greek  and  Egyptian  officials, 
and  numerous  families  of  wealthy  Europeans,  Syrians, 
Jews,  and  Egyptians.  The  professors  and  scholars  of 
the  Museum  constituted  a  class  of  their  own,  much 
patronised  by  the  court,  but  probably  not  often  accepted 
by  the  aristocracy  of  the  city  for  any  other  reason  than 
that  of  their  learning.  The  mob  was  mainly  composed 
of  Greeks  of  mixed  breed,  together  with  a  large  number 
of  Egyptians  of  somewhat  impure  stock ;  and  a  more 
noisy,  turbulent,  and  excitable  crowd  could  not  be  found 
in  all  the  world,  not  even  in  riotous  Rome.  The  Greeks 
and  Jews  were  constantly  annoying  one  another,  but 
the  Greeks  and  Egyptians  seem  to  have  fraternised 
to  a  very  considerable  extent,  for  there  was  not  so  wide 
a  gulf  between  them  as  might  be  imagined.  The 
Egyptians  of  Alexandria,  and,  indeed,  of  all  the  Delta, 
were  often  no  darker- skinned  than  the  Greeks.  Both 
peoples  were  noisy  and  excitable,  vain  and  ostentatious, 
smart  and  clever.  They  did  not  quarrel  upon  religious 
matters,  for  the  Egyptian  gods  were  easily  able  to  be 
identified  with  those  of  Greece,  and  the  chief  deity 
of  Alexandria,  Serapis,  was  here  worshipped  by  both 
nations  in  common.  In  the  domain  of  art  they  had 
no  cause  for  dissensions,  for  the  individual  art  of  Egypt 
was  practically  dead,  and   that   of  Greece  had  been 


36      LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


accepted  by  cultivated  Egyptians  as  the  correct  expres- 
sion of  the  refinement  in  which  they  desired  to  live. 
Both  peoples  were  industrious,  and  eager  in  the  pursuit 
of  wealth,  and  both  were  able  to  set  their  labours  aside 
with  ease,  and  to  turn  their  whole  attention  to  the 
amusements  which  the  luxurious  city  provided.  Polybius 
speaks  of  the  Egyptians  as  being  smart  and  civilised; 
and  of  the  Alexandrian  Greeks  he  writes  that  they  were 
a  poor  lot,  though  he  seems  to  have  preferred  them  to 
the  Egyptians. 

The  people  of  Alexandria  were  passionately  fond  of 
the  theatre.  In  the  words  of  Dion  Chrysostom,  who, 
however,  speaks  of  the  citizens  of  a  century  later  than 
Cleopatra,  "  the  whole  town  lived  for  excitement,  and 
when  the  manifestation  of  Apis  (the  sacred  bull)  took 
place,  all  Alexandria  went  fairly  mad  with  musical  enter- 
tainments and  horse-races.  When  doing  their  ordinary 
work  they  were  apparently  sane,  but  the  instant  they 
entered  the  theatre  or  the  racecourse  they  appeared  as 
if  possessed  by  some  intoxicating  drug,  so  that  they  no 
longer  knew  nor  cared  what  they  said  or  did.  And  this 
was  the  case  even  with  women  and  children,  so  that 
when  the  show  was  over,  and  the  first  madness  past, 
all  the  streets  and  byways  were  seething  with  excite- 
ment for  days,  like  the  swell  after  a  storm."  The 
Emperor  Hadrian  says  of  them :  "  I  have  found  them 
wholly  light,  wavering,  and  flying  after  every  breath 
of  a  report.  .  .  .  They  are  seditious,  vain,  and  spite- 
ful, though  as  a  body  wealthy  and  prosperous."  The 
impudent  wit  of  the  young  Grseco-Egyptian  dandy  was 
proverbial,  and  must  always  have  constituted  a  cause 
of  offence  to  those  whose  public  positions  laid  them  open 
to  attack.    No  sooner  did  a  statesman  assume  office,  or 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  37 


a  king  come  to  the  throne,  than  he  was  given  some  scur- 
rilous nickname  by  the  wags  of  the  city,  which  stuck 
to  him  throughout  the  remainder  of  his  life.  Thus, 
to  quote  a  few  examples,  Ptolemy  IX.  was  called 
"Bloated,"  Ptolemy  X.  "Vetch,"  Ptolemy  XIII. 
"Piper";  Seleucus  they  named  "Pickled-fish  Pedlar," 
and  in  later  times  Vespasian  was  named  "  Scullion." 
All  forms  of  ridicule  appealed  to  them,  and  many  are 
the  tales  told  in  this  regard.  Thus,  when  King  Agrippa 
passed  through  the  city  on  his  way  to  his  insecure  throne, 
these  young  Alexandrians  dressed  up  an  unfortunate 
madman  whom  they  had  found  in  the  streets,  put  a 
paper  crown  upon  his  head  and  a  reed  in  his  hand, 
and  led  him  through  the  town,  hailing  him  as  King  of 
the  Jews :  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Agrippa 
was  the  friend  of  Caligula,  their  Emperor.  Against 
Vespasian  they  told  with  delight  the  story  of  how  he 
had  bothered  one  of  his  friends  for  the  payment  of  a 
trifling  loan  of  six  obols,  and  somebody  made  up  a  song 
in  which  the  fact  was  recorded.  They  ridiculed  Cara- 
calla  in  the  same  manner,  laughing  at  him  for  dressing 
himself  like  Alexander  the  Great,  although  his  stature 
was  below  the  average ;  but  in  this  case  they  had  not 
reckoned  with  their  man,  whose  revenge  upon  them  was 
an  act  no  less  frightful  than  the  total  extermination  of 
all  the  well-to-do  young  men  of  the  city,  they  being  col- 
lected together  under  a  false  pretence  and  butchered  in 
cold  blood.  These  Alexandrians  were  famous  for  the 
witty  and  scathing  verses  which  they  composed  upon 
topical  subjects;  and  a  later  historian  speaks  of  this 
proficiency  of  theirs  "  in  making  songs  and  epigrams 
against  their  rulers."  Such  ditties  were  carried  from 
Egypt  to  Rome,  and  were  sung  in  the  Italian  capital, 


38       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


just  as  nowadays  the  latest  American  air  is  hummed  and 
whistled  in  the  streets  of  London.  Indeed,  in  Rome  the 
wit  of  Alexandria  was  very  generally  appreciated ;  and, 
a  few  years  later,  one  hears  of  Alexandrian  comedians 
causing  Roman  audiences  to  rock  with  laughter. 

The  Emperor  Hadrian,  as  we  have  seen,  speaks  of 
the  Alexandrians  as  being  spiteful ;  and,  no  doubt,  a 
great  deal  of  their  vaunted  wit  had  that  character.  The 
young  Graeco-Egyptian  was  inordinately  vain  and  self- 
satisfied  ;  and  no  critic  so  soon  adopts  a  spiteful  tone 
as  he  who  has  thought  himself  above  criticism.  The 
conceit  of  these  smart  young  men  was  very  noticeable, 
and  is  frequently  referred  to  by  early  writers.  They 
appear  to  have  been  much  devoted  to  the  study  of  their 
personal  appearance ;  and  if  one  may  judge  by  the  habits 
of  the  upper-class  Egyptians  and  Levantines  of  present- 
day  Alexandria,  many  of  them  must  have  been  intolerable 
fops.  The  luxury  of  their  houses  was  probably  far  greater 
than  that  in  Roman  life  at  this  date,  and  they  had  studied 
the  culinary  arts  in  an  objectionably  thorough  manner. 
Dion  Chrysostom  says  the  Alexandrians  of  his  day 
thought  of  little  else  but  food  and  horse-racing.  Both 
Greeks  and  Egyptians  in  Alexandria  had  the  reputation 
of  being  fickle  and  easily  influenced  by  the  moment's 
emotion,  "  I  should  be  wasting  many  words  in  vain," 
says  the  author  of  *  De  Bello  Alexandrino,'  "  if  I  were 
to  defend  the  Alexandrians  from  the  charges  of  deceit 
and  levity  of  mind.  .  .  .  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  race  is  most  prone  to  treachery."  They  had  few 
traditions,  no  feelings  of  patriotism,  and  not  much  poli- 
tical interest.  They  did  not  make  any  study  of  them- 
selves, nor  write  histories  of  their  city :  they  lived  for 
the  moment,  and  if  the  Government  of  the  hour  were 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  39 


distasteful  to  them  they  revolted  against  it  with  startling 
rapidity.  The  city  was  constantly  being  disturbed  by 
street  rioting,  and  there  was  no  great  regard  for  human 
hfe. 

The  population  of  Alexandria  is  said  to  have  been 
about  300,000  during  the  later  years  of  the  Ptolemaic 
dynasty,  which  was  not  much  less  than  that  of  Rome 
before  the  Civil  War,  and  twice  the  Roman  number 
after  that  sanguinary  struggle.^  In  spite  of  its  reputa- 
tion for  frivolity  it  was  very  largely  a  business  city, 
and  a  goodly  portion  of  its  citizens  were  animated  by 
a  lively  commercial  spirit  which  quite  outclassed  that 
of  the  Italian  capital  in  enterprise  and  bustle.  This, 
of  course,  was  a  Greek  and  not  an  Egyptian  character- 
istic, for  the  latter  are  notoriously  unenterprising  and 
conservative  in  their  methods,  while  the  Greeks,  to  this 
day,  are  admirable  merchants  and  business  men,  Alex- 
andria was  the  most  important  corn-market  of  the  world, 
and  for  this  reason  was  always  envied  by  Rome.  Inci- 
dentally I  may  remark  that  proportionally  far  more 
corn  was  consumed  in  Cleopatra's  time  than  in  our 
own ;  and  Caesar  once  speaks  of  the  endurance  of  his 
soldiers  in  submitting  to  eat  meat  owing  to  the  scarcity 
of  corn.^  The  city  was  also  engaged  in  many  other 
forms  of  commerce,  and  in  the  reign  of  Cleopatra  it 
was  recognised  as  the  greatest  trading  centre  in  the 
world.  Here  East  and  West  met  in  the  busy  market- 
places ;  and  at  the  time  with  which  we  are  dealing  the 
eyes  of  all  men  were  beginning  to  be  turned  to  this  city 
as  being  the  terminus  of  the  new  trade-route  to  India, 
along  which  such  rich  merchandise  was  already  being 
conveyed. 

1  Plutarch  :  Caesar.  2         civ.  III.  47. 


40       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


It  was  at  the  same  time  the  chief  seat  of  Greek  learn- 
ing, and  regarded  itself  also  as  the  leading  authority  on 
matters  of  art  —  a  point  which  must  have  been  open 
to  dispute.  The  great  figure  of  Nilus,  of  which  an 
illustration  is  given  in  this  volume,  is  generally  con- 
sidered to  be  an  example  of  Alexandrian  art.  The 
famous  "Alexandrian  School,"  celebrated  for  its  scien- 
tific work  and  its  poetry,  had  existed  for  more  than  two 
hundred  years,  and  was  now  in  its  decline,  though  it 
still  attempted  to  continue  the  old  Hellenic  culture.^ 
The  school  of  philosophy,  which  succeeded  it  in  cel- 
ebrity, was  just  beginning  to  come  into  prominence. 
Thus  the  eyes  of  all  merchants,  all  scientists,  all  men 
of  letters,  all  scholars,  and  all  statesmen,  were  turned 
in  these  days  to  Alexandria ;  and  the  Ptolemaic  court, 
in  spite  of  the  degeneracy  of  its  sovereigns,  was  held 
in  the  highest  esteem. 

1  Susemihl.  Geschichte  der  griechischen  Litteratur  in  der  Alexandrin- 
erzeit. 


41 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  BIRTH  AND  EARLY  YEARS  OF  CLEOPATRA. 

Cleopatra  was  the  last  of  the  regnant  Ptolemaic  sover- 
eigns of  Egypt,  and  was  the  seventh  Egyptian  Queen 
of  her  name,^  in  her  person  all  the  rights  and  privileges 
of  that  extraordinary  line  of  Pharaohs  being  vested. 
The  Ptolemaic  Dynasty  was  founded  in  the  first  years 
of  the  third  century  before  Christ  by  Ptolemy,  the  son 
of  Lagus,  one  of  the  Macedonian  generals  of  Alexander 
the  Great,  who,  on  his  master's  death,  seized  the  prov- 
ince of  Egypt,  and,  a  few  years  later,  made  himself  King 
of  that  country,  establishing  himself  at  the  newly-founded 
city  of  Alexandria  on  the  sea-coast.  For  two  and  a  half 
centuries  the  dynasty  presided  over  the  destinies  of 
Egypt,  at  first  with  solicitous  care,  and  later  with  start- 
ling nonchalance,  until,  with  the  death  of  the  great 
Cleopatra  and  her  son  Ptolemy  XVI.  (Csesarion),  the 
royal  line  came  to  an  end. 

For  the  right  understanding  of  Cleopatra's  character 
it  must  be  clearly  recognised  that  the  Ptolemies  were 
in  no  way  Egyptians.    They  were  Macedonians,  as  I 

^  In  hieroglyphs  the  name  reads  Kkopadra.  It  is  a  Greek  name,  meaning 
"  Glory  of  her  Race." 


42       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


have  already  said,  in  whose  veins  flowed  not  one  drop 
of  Egyptian  blood.  Their  capital  city  of  Alexandria  was, 
in  the  main,  a  Mediterranean  colony  set  down  upon 
the  sea-coast  of  Egypt,  but  having  no  connection  with 
the  Delta  and  the  Nile  Valley  other  than  the  purely  com- 
mercial and  official  relationship  which  of  necessity  ex- 
isted between  the  maritime  seat  of  Government  and  the 
provinces.  The  city  was  Greek  in  character  ;  the  temples 
and  public  buildings  were  constructed  in  the  Greek 
manner;  the  art  of  the  period  was  Greek;  the  life  of 
the  upper  classes  was  lived  according  to  Greek  habits ; 
the  dress  of  the  court  and  of  the  aristocracy  was  Greek  ; 
the  language  spoken  by  them  was  Greek,  pronounced,  it 
it  is  said,  with  the  broad  Macedonian  accent.  It  is  prob- 
able that  no  one  of  the  Ptolemies  ever  wore  Egyptian 
costume,  except  possibly  for  ceremonial  purposes ;  and, 
in  passing,  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  modern  con- 
ventional representation  of  the  great  Cleopatra  walking 
about  her  palace  clothed  in  splendid  Egyptian  robes 
and  wearing  the  vulture-headdress  of  the  ancient  queens 
has  no  justification.^  It  is  true  that  she  is  said  to  have 
attired  herself  on  certain  occasions  in  a  dress  designed 
to  simulate  that  which  was  supposed  by  the  priests  of 
the  time  to  have  been  worn  by  the  mother-deity  Isis ; 
but  contemporaneous  representations  of  Isis  generally 
show  her  clad  in  the  Greek  and  not  the  Egyptian 
manner.  And  if  she  ever  wore  the  ancient  dress  of 
the  Egyptian  queens,  it  must  have  been  only  at  great 
religious  festivals  or  on  occasions  where  conformity  to 
obsolete  habits  was  required  by  the  ritual. 

The  relationship  of  the  royal  house  to  the  people  was 

'  Representations  of  Cleopatra  or  other  sovereigns  of  the  dynasty  dressed  in 
Egyptian  costume  are  probably  simply  traditional. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  43 


very  similar  to  that  existing  at  the  present  day  between 
the  Khedivial  dynasty  and  the  provincial  natives  of 
Egypt.  The  modern  Khedivial  princes  are  Albanians, 
who  cannot  record  in  their  genealogy  a  single  Egyptian 
ancestor.  They  live  in  the  European  manner,  and  dress 
according  to  the  dictates  of  Paris  and  London.  Simi- 
larly the  Ptolemies  retained  their  Macedonian  nationality, 
and  Plutarch  tells  us  that  not  one  of  them  even  troubled 
to  learn  the  Egyptian  language.  On  the  other  hand 
the  Egyptians,  constrained  by  the  force  of  circumstances, 
accepted  the  dynasty  as  the  legal  successor  of  the  ancient 
Pharaonic  line,  and  assigned  to  the  Ptolemies  all  the 
titles  and  dignities  of  their  great  Pharaohs. 

These  Greek  sovereigns,  Cleopatra  no  less  than  her 
predecessors,  were  given  the  titles  which  had  been  so 
proudly  borne  by  Rameses  the  Great  and  the  mighty 
Thutmosis  the  Third,  a  thousand  years  and  more  before 
their  day.  They  were  named,  "  Living  Image  of  the 
God  Amon,"  "  Child  of  the  Sun,"  and  "  Chosen  of  Ptah," 
just  as  the  great  Memnon  and  the  conquering  Sesostris 
had  been  named  when  Egypt  was  the  first  power  in  the 
world.  In  the  temples  throughout  the  land,  with  the 
exception  of  those  of  importance  at  Alexandria,  these 
Macedonian  monarchs  were  pictorially  represented  in  the 
guise  of  the  ancient  Pharaohs,  crowned  with  the  tall 
crowns  of  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt,  the  horns  and 
feathers  of  Amon  upon  their  heads,  and  the  royal  ser- 
pent at  their  foreheads.  There  they  were  seen  worship- 
ping the  old  gods  of  Egypt,  prostrating  themselves  in 
the  presence  of  the  cow  Hathor,  bowing  before  the  croco- 
dile Sobk,  burning  incense  at  the  shrine  of  the  cat  Bast, 
and  performing  all  the  magical  ceremonies  hallowed  by 
the  usage  of  four  thousand  years.     They  were  shown 


44      LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


enthroned  with  the  gods,  embraced  by  Isis,  saluted  by 
Osiris,  and  kissed  by  Mout,  the  Mother  of  Heaven. 
Yet  it  is  doubtful  whether  in  actual  fact  any  Ptolemy 
at  any  time  identified  himself  in  this  manner  with  the 
traditional  character  of  a  Pharaoh. 

Very  occasionally  one  of  these  Greek  sovereigns  left 
his  city  of  Alexandria  to  visit  Egypt  proper,  and  to 
travel  up  the  Nile.  At  certain  cities  he  honoured  the 
local  temple  with  a  visit  and  performed  in  a  perfunctory 
manner  the  prescribed  ceremonies,  just  as  a  modern 
sovereign  lays  a  foundation-stone  or  launches  a  battle- 
ship. But  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  any  member 
of  the  royal  house  regarded  himself  as  an  Egyptian  in 
the  traditional  sense  of  the  word.  They  were  careful 
as  a  rule  to  placate  the  priesthood,  and  to  allow  them 
a  free  use  of  their  funds  in  the  building  and  decoration 
of  the  temples ;  and  Egyptian  national  life  was  fostered 
to  a  very  considerable  extent.  But  in  Alexandria  one 
might  hardly  have  believed  oneself  to  be  in  the  land  of 
the  Pharaohs,  and  the  court  was  almost  entirely  European 
in  character. 

The  Ptolemies  as  a  family  were  extraordinarily  callous 
in  their  estimate  of  the  value  of  human  life,  and  the 
history  of  the  dynasty  is  marked  throughout  its  whole 
length  by  a  series  of  villainous  murders.  In  this  respect 
they  showed  their  non-Egyptian  blood ;  for  the  people 
of  the  Nile  were,  and  now  are,  a  kindly,  pleasant  folk, 
not  predisposed  to  the  arts  of  the  assassin  and  not  by 
any  means  regardless  of  the  rights  of  their  fellow-men. 
It  may  be  of  interest  to  record  here  some  of  the  murders 
for  which  the  Ptolemies  are  responsible.  Ptolemy  III., 
according  to  Justin,  was  murdered  by  his  son  Ptolemy 
IV.,  who  also  seems  to  have  planned  at  one  time  and 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  45 


another  the  murders  of  his  brother  Magas,  his  uncle 
Lysimachus,  his  mother  Berenice,  and  his  wife  Arsinoe. 
Ptolemy  V.  is  described  as  a  cruel  and  violent  monarch, 
who  seems  to  have  indulged  the  habit  of  murdering  those 
who  offended  him.  Ptolemy  VII.  is  said  by  Polybius 
to  have  had  the  Egyptian  vice  of  riotousness,  although 
on  the  whole  averse  to  shedding  blood.  Ptolemy  VIII. 
murdered  his  young  nephew,  the  heir  to  the  throne, 
and  married  the  dead  boy's  mother,  the  widowed  queen 
Cleopatra  II.,  who  shortly  afterwards  presented  him  with 
a  baby,  Memphites,  whose  paternal  parentage  is  doubtful. 
Ptolemy  later,  according  to  some  accounts,  murdered 
this  child  and  sent  his  body  in  pieces  to  the  mother.  He 
then  married  his  niece,  Cleopatra  III. ;  and  she,  on  being 
left  a  widow,  appears  to  have  murdered  Cleopatra  II. 
This  Cleopatra  III.  bore  a  son  who  later  ascended  the 
throne  as  Ptolemy  XL,  whom  she  afterwards  attempted 
to  murder,  but  the  tables  being  turned  she  was  murdered 
by  him.  Ptolemy  X.  was  driven  from  the  throne  by  his 
mother,  who  installed  Ptolemy  XI.  in  his  place,  and 
was  promptly  murdered  by  the  new  king  for  her  pains. 
Ptolemy  XII.,  having  married  his  stepmother,  murdered 
her,  and  himself  was  murdered  shortly  afterwards. 
Ptolemy  XIII.,  the  father  of  the  great  Cleopatra, 
murdered  his  daughter  Berenice  and  also  several  other 
persons. 

The  women  of  this  family  were  even  more  violent  than 
the  men.  Mahaffy  describes  their  characteristics  in  the 
following  words  :  "  Great  power  and  wealth,  which 
makes  an  alliance  with  them  imply  the  command  of 
large  resources  in  men  and  money ;  mutual  hatred ;  dis- 
regard of  all  ties  of  family  and  affection ;  the  dearest 
object  fratricide — such  pictures  of  depravity  as  make 


46       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


any  reasonable  man  pause  and  ask  whether  human 
nature  had  deserted  these  women  and  the  Hyrcanian 
tiger  of  the  poet  taken  its  place."  In  many  other 
ways  also  this  murderous  family  of  kings  possessed  an 
unenviable  reputation.  The  first  three  Ptolemies  were 
endowed  with  many  sterling  qualities,  and  were  con- 
spicuous for  their  talents;  but  the  remaining  monarchs 
of  the  dynasty  were,  for  the  most  part,  degenerate  and 
debauched.  They  were,  however,  patrons  of  the  arts 
and  sciences,  and  indeed  they  did  more  for  them  than 
did  almost  any  other  royal  house  in  the  world.  Ptole- 
maic Alexandria  was  to  some  extent  the  birthplace  of 
the  sciences  of  anatomy,  geometry,  conic  sections, 
hydrostatics,  geography,  and  astronomy,  while  its 
position  in  the  artistic  world  was  most  important. 
The  splendour  and  luxury  of  the  palace  was  far-famed, 
and  the  sovereign  lived  in  a  chronic  condition  of 
repletion  which  surpassed  that  of  any  other  court. 
When  Scipio  Africanus  visited  Egypt  he  found  our 
Cleopatra's  great-grandfather,  Ptolemy  IX.,  who  was 
nicknamed  Physkon,  "  the  Bloated,"  fat,  pufl&ng,  and 
thoroughly  over-fed.  As  Scipio  walked  to  the  palace 
with  the  King,  who,  in  too  transparent  robes,  breathed 
heavily  by  his  side,  he  whispered  to  a  friend  that 
Alexandria  had  derived  at  least  one  benefit  from  his 
visit — it  had  seen  its  sovereign  taking  a  walk.  Ptolemy 

X.  ,  Cleopatra's  grandfather,  obtained  the  nickname 
"  Lathyros,"  owing,  it  is  said,  to  the  resemblance  of 
his  nose  to  a  vetch  or  some  such  flowery  and  legumi- 
nous plant :  a  fact  which  certainly  suggests  that  the 
King  was  not  a  man  of  temperate  habits.  Ptolemy 

XI.  was  so  bloated  by  gluttony  and  vice  that  he  seldom 
walked  without  crutches,  though,  under  the  influence 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  47 


of  wine,  he  was  able  to  skip  about  the  room  freely 
enough  with  his  drunken  comrades.  Ptolemy  XIIL, 
Cleopatra's  father,  had  such  an  objection  to  temper- 
ance that  once  he  threatened  to  put  the  philosopher 
Demetrius  to  death  for  not  being  intoxicated  at  one 
of  his  feasts;  and  the  unfortunate  man  was  obliged 
the  next  day  publicly  to  drink  himself  silly  in  order 
to  save  his  life.  Such  glimpses  as  these  show  us  the 
Ptolemies  at  their  worst,  and  we  are  constrained  to  ask 
how  it  is  possible  that  Cleopatra,  who  brought  the  line 
to  a  termination,  could  have  failed  to  be  a  thoroughly 
bad  woman.  Yet,  as  will  presently  become  apparent, 
there  is  no  great  reason  to  suppose  that  her  sins  were 
either  many  or  scarlet. 

Cleopatra's  father,  Ptolemy  XIIL,  who  went  by  the 
nickname  of  Auletes,  "the  Piper,"  was  a  degenerate 
little  man,  who  passes  across  Egypt's  political  stage 
in  a  condition  of  almost  continuous  inebriety.  We 
watch  his  drunken  antics  as  he  directs  the  Bacchic 
orgies  in  the  palace;  we  see  him  stupidly  plotting  and 
scheming  to  hold  his  tottering  throne ;  we  hear  him 
playing  the  livelong  hours  away  upon  his  flute ;  and 
we  feel  that  his  deeds  would  be  hardly  worth  record- 
ing were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  in  his  reign  is  seen 
the  critical  development  of  the  political  relationship 
between  Rome  and  Egypt,  which,  towards  the  end  of 
the  Ptolemaic  dynasty,  came  to  have  such  a  compli- 
cated bearing  upon  the  history  of  both  countries.  After 
the  battle  of  Pydna  (b.c.  167)  Rome  had  obtained  almost 
absolute  control  of  the  Hellenistic  world,  and  she  soon 
began  to  lay  her  hands  on  all  the  commerce  of  the 
eastern  Mediterranean.  Towards  the  close  of  the 
Ptolemaic  period  the  great  Republic  turned  eager  eyes 


48       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


towards  Egypt,  watching  for  an  opportunity  to  seize 
that  wealthy  land  for  her  own  enrichment. 

Reference  to  the  genealogy  at  the  end  of  this  volume 
will  show  the  reader  that  the  main  line  of  the  Lagidae 
came  to  an  end  on  the  assassination  (after  a  reign  of 
nineteen  days)  of  Ptolemy  XII.  (Alexander  II.),  who  had 
been  raised  to  the  throne  by  Roman  help.  The  only 
legitimate  child  of  Ptolemy  X.  (Soter  II.)  was  Berenice 

III.  ,  the  cousin  of  Ptolemy  XII.,  who  had  been  married 
to  him,  the  union,  however,  producing  no  heir  to  the 
throne.  Ptolemy  X.  had  two  sons,  the  half-brothers 
of  Berenice  III.,  but  they  were  both  illegitimate,  the 
name  and  status  of  their  mother  being  now  unknown. 
It  is  possible  that  they  were  the  children  of  Cleopatra 

IV.  ,  who  was  divorced  from  their  father  at  his  accession ; 
or  it  is  possible  that  the  lady  was  not  of  royal  blood. 
On  the  death  of  Ptolemy  XII.  one  of  these  two  young 
men  proclaimed  himself  Pharaoh  of  Egypt,  being  known 
to  us  as  Ptolemy  XIII.,  and  the  other  announced  him- 
self as  King  of  Cyprus,  also  under  the  name  of  Ptolemy. 
The  people  of  Alexandria  at  once  accepted  Ptolemy  XIII. 
as  their  king,  for,  whether  illegitimate  or  not,  he  was  the 
eldest  male  descendant  of  the  line,  and  their  refusal  to 
accept  his  rule  would  have  brought  the  dynasty  to  a 
close,  thereby  insuring  an  immediate  Roman  occupation. 
Cicero  speaks  of  the  new  monarch  as  nec  regio  genere  ortus, 
which  implies  that  whoever  his  mother  might  be,  she  was 
not  a  reigning  queen  at  the  time  of  his  birth ;  but  the 
Alexandrian  populace  were  in  no  mood  to  raise  scruples 
in  regard  to  his  origin,  when  it  was  apparent  that  he 
alone  stood  between  their  liberty  and  the  stern  domina- 
tion of  Rome. 

No  sooner  had  he  ascended  the  throne,  however,  with 


Alexaiulria  M usann.  \ 

SBRAPIS. 
THE    CHIEF   GOD   OF  ALEXANDRIA. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  49 


the  title  of  Ptolemy  (XIII.)  Neos  Dionysos,  than  the 
discovery  was  made  that  Ptolemy  XII.,  under  his  name 
of  Alexander,  had  in  his  will  appointed  the  Roman 
Republic  his  heir,  thus  voluntarily  bringing  his  dynasty 
to  a  close.  Such  a  course  of  action  was  not  novel.  It 
had  already  been  followed  in  the  case  of  Pergamum, 
Cyrene,  and  Bithynia,  and  it  seems  likely  that  Ptolemy 
XII.  had  taken  this  step  in  order  to  obtain  the  financial 
or  moral  support  of  the  Romans  in  regard  to  his  acces- 
sion, or  for  some  equally  urgent  reason.  The  Senate 
acknowledged  the  authenticity  of  the  will,  which,  of 
course,  the  party  of  Ptolemy  XIII.  had  denied.  It  had 
been  suggested  that  the  testator  was  not  Ptolemy  XII. 
at  all,  but  another  Alexander,  Ptolemy  XL  (Alexander 
I.),  or  an  obscure  person  sometimes  referred  to  as 
Alexander  III.  There  is  little  question,  however,  that 
the  will  was  genuine  enough ;  but  there  is  considerable 
doubt  as  to  whether  it  was  legally  valid.  In  the  first 
place,  it  was  probably  written  before  Ptolemy  XII.  suc- 
ceeded to  the  kingdom  ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  such 
a  will  would  only  be  valid  were  there  no  heir  to  the 
throne ;  but  the  people  of  Alexandria  had  accepted 
Ptolemy  XIII.  as  the  rightful  heir.  At  all  events  the 
Senate,  while  seizing,  by  virtue  of  the  document,  as 
much  of  the  private  fortune  of  the  testator  as  they  could 
lay  hands  on,  took  no  steps  to  dethrone  the  two  new 
kings,  either  of  Egypt  or  Cyprus,  though,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  did  not  officially  recognise  them. 

In  this  attitude  they  were  influenced  also  by  the  fact 
that  a  large  party  in  Rome  did  not  wish  to  see  the 
Republic  further  involved  in  Oriental  affairs,  nor  did 
they  feel  at  the  moment  inclined  to  place  in  the  hands 
of  any  one  man  such  power  as  would  accrue  to  the 

D 


50       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


official  who  should  be  appointed  as  Governor  of  the  new 
province.  Egypt  was  regarded  as  a  very  wealthy  and 
important  country,  second  only  to  Rome  in  the  extent  of 
its  power.  It  held  the  keys  to  the  rich  lands  of  the 
south,  and  to  Arabia  and  India  it  seemed  to  be  one  of 
the  main  gateways.  The  revenues  of  the  palace  of 
Alexandria  were  quite  equal  to  the  public  income  of 
Rome  at  this  time;  and,  indeed,  even  at  a  later  date, 
after  Pompey  had  so  greatly  augmented  the  yearly  sum 
in  the  Treasury,  the  wealth  of  the  Egyptian  Court  was 
not  far  short  of  this  increased  total.^  Alexandria  had 
succeeded  Athens  as  the  seat  of  culture  and  learning, 
and  it  was  now  regarded  as  the  second  city  of  the  world. 
It  was  therefore  felt  that  the  armies  and  the  generals 
sent  over  the  sea  to  this  distant  land  might  well  run  the 
risk  of  being  absorbed  into  the  life  of  the  country  which 
they  were  holding,  and  might  as  it  were  inevitably  set 
up  an  Eastern  Empire  which  would  be  a  menace,  and 
even  a  terror,  to  Rome. 

The  new  King  of  Egypt,  whom  we  may  now  call  by 
his  nickname  Auletes,  was  much  disturbed  by  the  exist- 
ence of  this  will,  and  throughout  his  reign  he  was  con- 
stantly making  efforts  to  buy  off  the  expected  interference 
of  Rome.  He  was  an  unhappy  and  unfortunate  man. 
All  he  asked  was  to  be  allowed  to  enjoy  the  royal  wealth 
in  drunken  peace,  and  not  to  be  bothered  by  the  haunting 
fear  that  he  might  be  turned  out  of  his  kingdom.  He 
was  a  keen  enjoyer  of  good  living,  and  there  was  nothing 
that  pleased  him  so  much  as  the  participation  in  one  of 
the  orgies  of  Dionysos.  He  played  the  pipes  with  some 
proficiency,  and,  when  he  was  sober,  it  would  seem  that 
he  spent  many  a  contented  hour  piping  pleasantly  in  the 

^  Mommsen.  , 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  51 


sun.  Yet  his  reign  was  continuously  overshadowed  by 
this  knowledge  that  the  Romans  might  at  any  moment 
dethrone  him ;  and  one  pictures  him  often  giving  vent  to 
an  evening  melancholy  by  blowing  from  his  little  flute 
one  of  those  wailing  dirges  of  his  native  land,  which 
flutter  upon  the  ears  like  the  notes  of  a  night-bird, 
and  drift  at  last  upon  a  half-tone  into  silence. 

In  the  fifth  year  of  his  reign,  that  is  to  say  in  B.C.  75, 
his  kinswoman,  Selene,  sent  her  two  sons  to  Rome  with 
the  object  of  obtaining  the  thrones  of  Egypt,  Cyprus,  and 
Syria ;  and  Auletes  must  have  watched  with  anxiety 
their  attempts  to  oust  him.  He  knew  that  they  were 
giving  bribes  right  and  left  to  the  Senators,  in  order  to 
effect  their  purpose,  and  he  was  aware  that  in  this  manner 
alone  the  heart  of  the  Roman  Republic  could  be  touched  ; 
yet  for  the  time  being  he  avoided  these  methods  of  ex- 
pending his  country's  revenue,  and,  after  a  while,  he  had 
the  satisfaction  of  hearing  that  Selene  had  abandoned 
her  efforts  to  obtain  recognition.  In  the  thirteenth  year 
of  his  reign  Pompey  sent  a  fleet  under  Lentulus  Marcel- 
linus  to  clear  the  Egyptian  coast  of  pirates,  and  when 
Lentulus  was  made  consul  he  caused  the  Ptolemaic  eagle 
and  thunderbolt  to  be  displayed  upon  his  coins  to  mark 
the  fact  that  he  had  exercised  an  act  of  sovereignty  in 
connection  with  that  country.  Three  years  later  another 
Roman  fleet  was  sent  to  Alexandria  to  impose  the  will  of 
the  Senate  in  regard  to  certain  disputed  questions;  and 
once  more  Auletes  must  have  suffered  from  the  terrors  of 
imminent  dethronement. 

In  B.C.  65  he  was  again  disturbed  from  his  bibulous 
ease  by  the  news  that  the  Romans  were  thinking  of 
sending  Crassus  or  Julius  Caesar  to  annex  his  kingdom ; 
but  the  scheme  came  to  naught,  and  for  a  time  Auletes 


52       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


was  left  in  peace.  In  B.C.  63  Pompey  annexed  Syria 
to  the  Roman  dominions,  and  thereupon  Auletes  sent 
him  a  large  present  of  money  and  military  supplies  in 
order  to  purchase  his  friendship.  At  the  same  time  he 
invited  him  to  come  to  Egypt  upon  a  friendly  visit,  but 
Pompey,  while  accepting  the  King's  money,  did  not  think 
it  necessary  to  make  use  of  his  hospitality. 

At  last,  in  B.C.  59,  Auletes  decided  to  go  himself  to 
Rome,  in  the  hope  of  obtaining,  through  the  good  offices 
of  Pompey,  or  of  Caesar,  who  was  Consul  in  that  year, 
the  official  recognition  by  the  Senate  of  his  right  to  the 
Egyptian  throne.  Being  so  degenerate  and  so  worthless 
a  personage,  there  was  no  likelihood  that  the  Romans 
would  confirm  him  in  his  kingdom  unless  they  were  well 
paid  to  do  so,  and  he  therefore  took  with  him  all  the 
money  he  could  lay  his  hands  upon.  In  Rome,  as 
Mommsen  says,  "  men  had  forgotten  what  honesty  was. 
A  person  who  refused  a  bribe  was  regarded  not  as  an 
upright  man,  but  as  a  personal  foe."  Auletes,  therefore, 
when  he  had  arrived,  gave  huge  bribes  to  various 
Senators  in  order  to  obtain  their  support,  and  he 
appears  to  have  been  most  systematically  fleeced  by 
the  acute  magnates  of  Rome.  When  for  the  moment 
his  Egyptian  resources  were  exhausted,  he  borrowed  a 
large  sum  from  the  great  financier,  Rabirius  Postumus, 
who  persuaded  some  of  his  friends  also  to  lend  the  King 
money.  These  men  formed  a  kind  of  syndicate  to  finance 
Auletes,  on  the  understanding  that  if  he  were  confirmed 
in  his  heritage,  they  should  each  receive  in  return  a  sum 
vastly  greater  than  that  which  they  had  put  in. 

The  visit  of  Auletes  to  Rome  was  made  in  the  nick 
of  time.  The  Pirate  and  the  Third  Mithridatic  wars 
had  left  the  Republic  in  pressing  need  of  money,  and 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  53 


there  was  much  talk  in  regard  to  the  advantages  of  an 
immediate  annexation  of  Egypt.  Crassus,  the  tribune 
Rullus,  and  Julius  Caesar  had  shown  themselves  anxious 
to  take  the  country  without  delay ;  and  the  unfortunate 
King  of  Egypt  thus  found  himself  in  a  most  desperate 
position.  At  last,  however,  a  bribe  of  6000  talents  (about 
a  million  and  a  half  sterling)  induced  the  nearly  bankrupt 
Caesar  to  give  Auletes  the  desired  recognition,  and  the 
disgraceful  transaction  came  to  a  temporary  conclusion 
with  Caesar's  violent  forcing  of  his  "Julian  Law  con- 
cerning the  King  of  Egypt "  through  the  Senate, 
whereby  Ptolemy  was  named  the  "  ally  and  friend  of 
the  Roman  people." 

In  the  next  year,  B.C.  58,  the  Romans,  still  in  need 
of  money,  prepared  to  annex  Cyprus,  over  which  Ptolemy, 
the  brother  of  Auletes,  was  reigning.  The  annexation 
had  been  proposed  by  Publius  Clodius,  a  scoundrelly 
politician,  who  bore  a  grudge  against  the  Cyprian 
Ptolemy  owing  to  the  fact  that  once  when  Clodius 
was  captured  by  pirates  Ptolemy  had  only  offered  two 
talents  for  his  ransom.  Ptolemy  would  not  now  buy  off 
the  invaders  as  his  brother  had  done,  and  in  consequence 
Cato  landed  on  the  island  and  converted  it  into  part  of 
the  Roman  province  of  Cilicia.  Ptolemy,  with  a  certain 
royal  dignity,  at  once  poisoned  himself,  preferring  to  die 
than  to  suffer  the  humiliation  of  banishment  from  the 
throne  which  he  had  usurped.  His  treasure  of  7000 
talents  (some  ;^i,700,ooo)  fell  into  the  hands  of  Cato, 
who  having,  no  doubt,  helped  himself  to  a  portion  of 
the  booty, ^  handed  the  remainder  over  to  the  benign 
Senate. 

No  sooner  had  Auletes  obtained  the  support  of  Rome, 

^  Or  do  I  wrong  the  hero  of  Utica? 


54       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


however,  than  his  own  people  of  Alexandria,  incensed  by 
the  increase  of  taxation  necessary  for  paying  off  his  debts, 
and  angry  also  at  the  King's  refusal  to  seize  Cyprus  from 
the  Romans,  rose  in  rebellion  and  drove  him  out  of 
Egypt.  While  the  wretched  man  was  on  his  way  to 
Rome,  he  put  in  at  Rhodes,  where  he  had  heard  that 
Cato  was  staying,  in  order  to  obtain  some  help  from  this 
celebrated  Senator;  and,  having  had  few  personal  deal- 
ings with  Romans,  he  sent  a  royal  invitation  or  command 
to  Cato  to  come  to  him.  The  Senator,  however,  who 
that  day  was  suffering  from  a  bilious  attack,  and  had  just 
swallowed  a  dose  of  medicine,  was  in  no  mind  to  wait 
upon  drunken  kings.  He  therefore  sent  a  message  to 
Auletes  stating  that  if  he  wished  to  see  him  he  had  better 
come  to  his  lodgings  in  the  town  ;  and  the  King  of  Egypt 
was  thus  obliged  to  humble  himself  and  to  find  his  way 
to  the  Senator's  house.  Cato  did  not  even  rise  from  his 
seat  when  Auletes  was  ushered  in ;  but  straightway 
bidding  the  King  be  seated,  gave  him  a  severe  lecture 
on  the  folly  of  going  to  Rome  to  plead  his  cause.  All 
Egypt  turned  into  silver,  he  declared,  would  hardly 
satisfy  the  greed  of  the  Romans  whom  he  would 
have  to  bribe,  and  he  strongly  urged  him  to  return  to 
Egypt  and  to  make  his  peace  with  his  subjects.  The 
Senator's  bilious  attack,  however,  seems  to  have  cut 
short  the  interview,  and  Auletes,  unconvinced,  set  sail 
for  Italy. 

Meanwhile  the  King's  daughter,  Berenice  IV.,  had 
seized  the  Egyptian  throne,  and  was  reigning  serenely  in 
her  father's  place.  This  princess  and  her  sister,  Cleo- 
patra VI.,  who  died  soon  afterwards,  were  the  only  two 
children  of  Auletes'  first  marriage — namely,  with  Cleo- 
patra V.    There  were  four  young  children  in  the  Palace 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  55 


nurseries  who  were  born  of  a  second  marriage,  but  who 
their  mother  was,  or  whether  she  was  at  this  time  alive  or 
dead,  history  does  not  record.  Of  these  four  children, 
two  afterwards  succeeded  to  the  throne  as  Ptolemy  XIV. 
and  Ptolemy  XV.,  a  third  was  the  unfortunate  Princess 
Arsinoe,  and  the  fourth  was  the  great  Cleopatra  VII.,  the 
heroine  of  the  present  volume,  at  this  time  about  eleven 
years  of  age,  having  been  born  in  the  winter  of  B.C. 
69-68. 

Auletes  having  filed  to  Rome,  approached  the  Senate 
in  the  manner  of  one  who  had  been  unjustly  evicted  from 
an  estate  which  he  had  purchased  from  them.  Again  he 
bribed  the  leading  statesmen,  and  again  borrowed  money 
on  all  sides,  though  now  it  is  probable  that  his  Roman 
creditors  were  less  sanguine  than  on  the  previous  occa- 
sion. Caesar  was  absent  in  Gaul  at  this  time,  and  there- 
fore was  not  able  to  be  bribed.  Pompey,  curiously 
enough,  does  not  appear  to  have  accepted  the  King's 
money,  though  he  offered  him  the  hospitality  of  his  villa 
in  the  Alban  district,  a  fact  which  suggests  that  the  idea 
of  restoring  Auletes  to  his  throne  had  made  a  strong 
appeal  to  the  imagination  of  this  impressionable  Roman. 
He  had  already  made  himself  a  kind  of  patron  of  the 
Egyptian  Court,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  he 
hoped  to  obtain  from  Auletes,  in  return  for  his  favours, 
the  freedom  to  make  use  of  the  wealth  and  resources  of 
that  monarch's  enormously  valuable  dominion. 

The  people  of  Alexandria,  who  were  eagerly  desirous 
that  Auletes  should  not  be  reinstated,  now  sent  an 
embassy  of  a  hundred  persons  to  Rome  to  lay  before 
the  Senate  their  case  against  the  King ;  but  the  banished 
monarch,  driven  by  despair  to  any  lengths,  hired  assas- 
sins and  caused  the  embassy  to  be  attacked  near  Puteoli, 


56       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


the  modern  Pozzuoli,  many  of  them  being  slain.  Those 
who  survived  were  heavily  bribed,  and  thus  the  crime 
was  hushed  up.  The  leader  of  the  deputation,  the 
philosopher  Dion,  escaped  on  this  occasion,  but  was 
poisoned  by  Auletes  as  soon  as  he  arrived  in  Rome;  and 
thereupon  the  desperate  King  was  able  to  breathe  once 
more  in  peace.  All  might  now  have  gone  well  with  his 
cause,  and  a  Roman  army  might  have  been  placed  at  his 
disposal  had  not  some  political  opponent  discovered  in 
the  Sibylline  Books  an  oracle  which  stated  that  if  the 
King  of  Egypt  were  to  come  begging  for  help  he  should 
be  aided  with  friendship  but  not  with  arms.  Thereat,  in 
despair,  the  unfortunate  Auletes  quitted  Rome,  and  took 
up  his  residence  at  Ephesus,  leaving  in  the  capital  an 
agent  named  Ammonios  to  keep  him  in  touch  with 
events. 

Three  years  later,  in  January  B.C.  55,  the  King's 
interests  were  still  being  discussed,  and  Pompey  was 
trying,  in  a  desultory  manner,  to  assist  him  back  to  his 
throne ;  but  so  great  were  the  fears  of  the  Senate  at 
placing  the  task  in  the  hands  of  any  one  man,  that  no 
decision  could  be  arived  at.  It  was  suggested  that 
Lentulus  Spinther,  the  Governor  of  Cilicia,  should  evade 
the  Sibylline  decree  by  leaving  Auletes  at  Ptolemais 
(Acre)  and  going  himself  to  Egypt  at  the  head  of  an 
army  ;  but  the  King  no  doubt  saw  in  this  an  attempt 
by  the  wily  Romans  simply  to  seize  his  country,  and  he 
appears  to  have  opposed  the  plan  with  understandable 
vehemence.  It  was  then  proposed  that  Lentulus  should 
take  no  army,  but  should  trust  to  the  might  of  the  Roman 
name  for  his  purpose,  thereby  following  the  advice  of  the 
prophetic  Books. 

At  last,  however,  Auletes  offered  the  huge  bribe  of 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  57 


10,000  talents  (nearly  two  and  a  half  millions  sterling) 
for  the  repurchase  of  his  kingdom;  and,  as  a  consequence, 
the  Governor  of  Syria,  Aulus  Gabinius,  himself  a  bank- 
rupt in  sore  need  of  money,  arranged  to  invade  Egypt 
and  to  place  Auletes  upon  the  throne  in  spite  of  the 
Sibylline  warnings,  Gabinius,  being  so  deeply  in  debt, 
and  knowing  that  a  large  portion  of  the  promised  sum 
would  pass  to  him,  was  extremely  eager  to  undertake  the 
war,  though  it  is  said  that  he  feared  the  possibility  of 
disaster.  He  therefore  pushed  forward  the  arrange- 
ments for  the  campaign  with  all  despatch,  and  soon 
was  prepared  to  set  out  across  the  desert  to  Egypt. 

Meanwhile  the  Alexandrians  had  married  Berenice  IV, 
to  Archelaus,  the  High  Priest  of  Komana  in  Cappadocia, 
an  ambitious  man  of  great  influence  and  authority,  a 
protege  of  Pompey  the  Great,  who  had  been  raised  to  the 
High  Priesthood  by  him  in  B.C.  64,  and  who  at  once 
attempted,  but  without  success,  to  obtain  through  him 
the  support  of  Rome.  Gabinius  was  not  long  in  de- 
claring war  against  Archelaus,  under  the  pretext  that 
he  was  encouraging  piracy  along  the  North  African 
coast,  and  also  that  he  was  building  a  fleet  which  might 
be  regarded  as  a  menace  to  Rome ;  and  soon  his  army 
was  marching  across  the  desert  from  Gaza  to  Pelusium. 
The  cavalry,  which  was  sent  in  advance  of  the  main 
army,  was  commanded  by  Marcus  Antonius,  at  this  time 
a  smart  young  soldier  whose  future  lay  all  golden  before 
him.  The  frontier  fortress  of  Pelusium  fell  to  his  brilliant 
generalship,  and  soon  the  Roman  legions  were  marching 
on  Alexandria.  The  palace  soldiery  now  joined  the 
invaders,  Archelaus  was  killed,  and  the  city  fell. 

Auletes  was  at  once  restored  to  his  throne,  and 
Berenice  IV.  was  put  to  death.    A  large  number  of 


58       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Roman  infantry  and  Celtic  and  German  cavalry,  of  whom 
we  shall  hear  again,  were  left  in  the  city  to  preserve 
order,  and  it  would  seem  that  for  a  short  time  Anthony 
remained  in  Alexandria.  The  young  Princess  Cleopatra 
was  now  a  girl  of  some  fourteen  years  of  age,  and  already 
she  is  said  to  have  attracted  the  Roman  cavalry  leader 
by  her  youthful  beauty  and  charm.  At  the  east  end  of 
the  Mediterranean  a  girl  of  fourteen  years  is  already 
mature,  and  has  long  arrived  at  what  is  called  a  marriage- 
able age.  There  is  probably  little  importance  to  be 
attached  to  this  meeting,  but  it  is  not  without  interest 
as  an  earnest  of  future  events. 

The  Romans  now  began  to  demand  payment  of  the 
various  sums  promised  to  them  by  Auletes.  Rabirius 
Postumus  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the  largest 
creditors,  and  the  only  way  in  which  the  King  could  pay 
him  back  was  by  making  him  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, so  that  all  taxes  might  pass  through  his  hands. 
Rabirius  also  represented  the  interests  of  the  importunate 
Julius  Caesar,  and  probably  those  of  Gabinius.  The  situa- 
tion was  thus  not  unlike  that  which  was  found  in  Egypt 
in  the  'seventies,  when  a  European  Commission  was 
appointed  to  handle  all  public  funds  in  order  that  the 
ruler's  private  debts  might  be  paid  off.  In  the  case  of 
Auletes,  however,  it  was  the  leading  Romans  who  were 
his  creditors,  and  hence  we  find  the  shadow  of  the  great 
Republic  hanging  over  the  Alexandrian  court,  and  Rome 
is  seen  to  be  inextricably  mixed  up  with  Egyptian  affairs. 
Roman  money  had  been  lent  and  had  to  be  regained ; 
Roman  officials  handled  all  the  taxes ;  a  Roman  army 
occupied  the  citj',  and  the  King  reigned  by  permission 
of  the  Roman  Senate  to  whom  his  kingdom  had  been 
bequeathed. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  59 


In  B.C.  54  the  Alexandrians  made  an  attempt  to  shake 
off  the  incubus,  and  drove  Rabirius  out  of  Egypt.  Roman 
attention  was  at  once  fixed  upon  Alexandria,  and  it  is 
probable  that  the  country  would  have  been  annexed  at 
once  had  not  the  appalling  Parthian  catastrophe  in  the 
following  year,  when  Crassus  was  defeated  and  killed, 
diverted  their  minds  to  other  channels.  Auletes,  how- 
ever, did  not  live  long  to  enjoy  his  dearly  -  bought 
immunity;  for  in  the  summer  of  B.C.  51  he  passed  away, 
leaving  behind  him  the  four  children  born  to  him  of  his 
second  marriage  with  the  unknown  lady  who  was  now 
probably  dead.  The  famous  Cleopatra,  the  seventh  of  the 
name,  was  the  eldest  of  this  family,  being,  at  her  father's 
death,  about  eighteen  years  of  age.  Her  sister  Arsinoe, 
whom  she  heartily  disliked,  was  a  few  years  younger. 
The  third  child  was  a  boy  of  ten  or  eleven  years  of  age, 
afterwards  known  as  Ptolemy  XIV.;  and  lastly,  there  was 
the  child  who  later  became  Ptolemy  XV.,  now  a  boy 
of  seven  or  eight. ^  Auletes,  warned  by  his  own  bitter 
experiences,  had  taken  the  precaution  to  write  an  explicit 
will  in  which  he  stated  clearly  his  wishes  in  regard  to 
the  succession.  One  copy  of  the  will  was  kept  at 
Alexandria,  and  a  second  copy,  duly  attested  and  sealed, 
was  placed  in  the  hands  of  Pompey  at  Rome,  who  had 
befriended  the  King  when  he  was  in  that  city,  with  the 
request  that  it  should  be  deposited  in  the  cerarium.  In 
this  will  Auletes  decreed  that  his  eldest  surviving  daugh- 
ter and  eldest  surviving  son  should  reign  jointly ;  and  he 
called  upon  the  Roman  people  in  the  name  of  all  their 
gods  and  in  view  of  all  their  treaties  made  with  him,  to 

'  Porphyry  says  he  died  in  the  eighth  year  of  Cleopatra's  reign,  and  Josephus 
states  that  he  was  fifteen  years  of  age  at  his  death.  This  would  make  him 
about  seven  years  old  at  Cleopatra's  accession,  which  seems  probable  enough. 


6o       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


see  that  the  terms  of  his  testament  were  carried  out. 
He  further  asked  the  Roman  people  to  act  as  guardian  to 
the  new  King,  as  though  fearing  that  the  boy  might  be 
suppressed,  or  even  put  out  of  the  way  by  his  co-regnant 
sister.  At  the  same  time  he  carefully  urged  them  to 
make  no  change  in  the  succession,  and  his  words  have 
been  thought  to  suggest  that  he  feared  lest  Cleopatra,  in 
like  manner,  might  be  removed  in  favour  of  Arsinoe.  In 
a  court  such  as  that  of  the  Ptolemies  the  fact  that  two 
sons  and  two  daughters  were  living  at  the  palace  at  the 
King's  death  boded  ill  for  the  prospects  of  peace ;  and  it 
would  seem  that  Auletes'  knowledge  that  Cleopatra  and 
Arsinoe  were  not  on  the  best  of  terms  gave  rise  in  his 
mind  to  the  greatest  apprehension.  Being  aware  of  the 
domestic  history  of  his  family,  and  knowing  that  his  own 
hands  were  stained  with  the  blood  of  his  daughter  Bere- 
nice, whom  he  had  murdered  on  his  return  from  exile, 
he  must  have  been  fully  alive  to  the  possibilities  of  inter- 
necine warfare  amongst  his  surviving  children;  and,  being 
in  his  old  age  sick  of  bloodshed  and  desiring  only  a  bibu- 
lous peace  for  himself  and  his  descendants,  he  took  every 
means  in  his  power  to  secure  for  them  that  pleasant 
inertia  which  had  been  denied  so  often  to  himself. 

His  wish  that  his  eighteen-year-old  daughter  should 
reign  with  his  ten-year-old  son  involved,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  the  marriage  of  the  sister  and  brother,  for  the 
Ptolomies  had  conformed  to  ancient  Egyptian  customs  to 
the  extent  of  perpetrating  when  necessary  a  royal  mar- 
riage between  a  brother  and  sister  in  this  manner.  The 
custom  was  of  very  ancient  establishment  in  Egypt,  and 
was  based  originally  on  the  law  of  female  succession, 
which  made  the  monarch's  eldest  daughter  the  heiress 
of  the  kingdom.    The  son  who  had  been  selected  by  his 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  6i 


father  to  succeed  to  the  throne,  or  who  aspired  to  the 
sovereignty  either  by  right  or  by  naight,  obtained  his 
legal  warrant  to  the  kingdom  by  marriage  with  this 
heiress.  When  such  an  heiress  did  not  exist,  or  when 
the  male  claimant  to  the  throne  had  no  serious  rivals, 
this  rule  often  seems  to  have  been  set  aside ;  but  there 
are  few  instances  of  its  disuse  when  circumstances 
demanded  a  solidification  of  the  royal  claim  to  the 
throne. 

When,  therefore,  according  to  the  terms  of  the  will  of 
Auletes,  his  eldest  daughter  and  eldest  son  succeeded 
jointly  to  the  throne  as  Cleopatra  VII.  and  Ptolemy 
XIV.,  their  formal  marriage  was  contemplated  as  a 
matter  of  course.  There  is  no  evidence  of  this  mar- 
riage, and  one  may  suppose  that  it  was  postponed  by 
Cleopatra's  desire,  on  the  grounds  of  the  extreme  youth 
of  the  King.  Marriages  at  the  age  of  eleven  or  twelve 
years  were  not  uncommon  in  ancient  Egypt,  but  they 
were  not  altogether  acceptable  to  Greek  minds ;  and 
the  Queen  could  not  have  found  much  difficulty  in 
making  this  her  justification  for  holding  the  power  in 
her  own  hands.  The  young  Ptolemy  XIV.  was  placed 
in  the  care  of  the  eunuch  Potheinos,  a  man  who  appears 
to  have  been  typical  of  that  class  of  palace  intriguers 
with  whom  the  historian  becomes  tediously  familiar. 
The  royal  tutor,  Theodotos,  an  objectionable  Greek 
rhetorician,  also  exercised  considerable  influence  in  the 
court,  and  a  third  intimate  of  the  King  was  an  un- 
scrupulous soldier  of  Egyptian  nationality  named 
Achillas,  who  commanded  the  troops  in  the  palace. 
These  three  men  very  soon  obtained  considerable 
power,  and,  acting  in  the  name  of  their  young  master, 
they  managed  to  take  a  large  portion  of  the  govern- 


62       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


ment  into  their  own  hands.  Cleopatra,  meanwhile, 
seems  to  have  suffered  something  of  an  eclipse.  She 
was  still  only  a  young  girl,  and  her  advisers  appear 
to  have  been  men  of  less  strength  of  purpose  than 
those  surrounding  her  brother's  person.  The  King 
being  still  a  minor,  the  bulk  of  the  formal  business 
of  the  State  was  performed  by  the  Queen ;  but  it 
would  seem  that  the  real  rulers  of  the  country  were 
Potheinos  and  his  friends. 

Some  two  or  three  years  after  the  death  of  Auletes, 
Marcus  Calpurnius  Bibulus,^  the  pro-consular  Governor 
of  Syria,  sent  his  two  sons  to  Alexandria  to  order  the 
Roman  troops  stationed  in  that  city  to  join  his  army 
in  his  contemplated  campaign  against  the  Parthians. 
These  Alexandrian  troops  constituted  the  Army  of  Oc- 
cupation, which  had  been  left  in  Egypt  by  Gabinius 
in  B.C.  55  as  a  protection  to  Auletes.  They  were  for 
the  most  part,  as  has  been  said,  Gallic  and  German 
cavalry,  rough  men  whose  rude  habits  and  bulky  forms 
must  have  caused  them  to  be  the  wonder  and  terror  of 
the  city.  These  Gabiniani  milites  had  by  this  time 
settled  down  in  their  new  home,  and  had  taken  wives 
to  themselves  from  the  Greek  and  Egyptian  families  of 
Alexandria.  In  spite  of  the  presence  amongst  them  of 
a  considerable  body  of  Roman  infantry  veterans  who 
had  fought  under  Pompey,  the  discipline  of  the  army 
was  already  much  relaxed ;  and  when  the  Governor  of 
Syria's  orders  were  received  there  was  an  immediate 
mutiny,  the  two  unfortunate  sons  of  Bibulus  being 
promptly  murdered  by  the  angry  and  probably  drunken 
soldiers.  When  the  affair  was  reported  to  the  palace, 
Cleopatra  issued  orders  for  the  immediate  arrest  of  the 

^  He  had  been  Consul  with  Julius  Caesar  in  59. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  63 


murderers ;  and  the  army,  realising  that  their  position 
as  mutinous  troops  was  untenable^  handed  over  the 
ringleaders  apparently  without  further  trouble.  The 
prisoners  were  then  sent  by  the  Queen  in  chains  to 
Bibulus ;  but  he,  being  possessed  of  the  best  spirit  of 
the  old  Roman  aristocracy,  sent  back  these  murderers 
of  his  two  sons  to  her  with  the  message  that  the  right 
of  inflicting  punishment  in  such  cases  belonged  only  to 
the  Senate.  History  does  not  tell  us  what  was  the 
ultimate  fate  of  these  men,  and  the  incident  is  not  of 
great  importance  except  in  so  far  as  it  shows  the  first 
recorded  act  of  Cleopatra's  reign  as  being  one  of  tactful 
deliberation  and  fair  dealing  with  her  Roman  neighbours. 

Shortly  after  this,  in  the  year  B.C.  49,  Pompey  sent 
his  son,  Cnaeus  Pompeius,  to  Egypt  to  procure  ships 
and  men  in  preparation  for  the  civil  war  which  now 
seemed  inevitable ;  and  the  Gabinian  troops,  feeling 
that  a  war  against  Julius  Caesar  offered  more  favour- 
able possibilities  than  a  campaign  against  the  ferocious 
Parthians,  cheerfully  responded  to  the  call.  Fifty  war- 
ships and  a  force  of  500  men  left  Alexandria  with  Cnaeus, 
and  eventually  attached  themselves  to  the  command  of 
Bibulus,  who  was  now  Pompey's  admiral  in  the  Adriatic. 
It  is  said  that  Cnaeus  Pompeius  was  much  attracted  by 
Cleopatra's  beauty  and  charm,  and  that  he  managed 
to  place  himself  upon  terms  of  intimacy  with  her;  but 
there  is  absolutely  nothing  to  justify  the  suggestion  that 
there  was  any  sort  of  serious  intrigue.  I  am  of  opinion 
that  the  stories  of  this  nature  which  passed  into  circula- 
tion were  due  to  the  fact  that  the  possibility  of  a  mar- 
riage between  Cleopatra  and  the  young  Roman  had  been 
contemplated  by  Alexandrian  politicians.  The  great 
Pompey  was  master  of  the  Roman  world,  and  a  union 


64       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


with  his  son,  on  the  analogy  of  that  between  Berenice 
and  the  High  Priest  of  Komana,  was  greatly  to  be  desired. 
The  proposal,  however,  does  not  seem  to  have  obtained 
much  support,  and  the  matter  was  presently  dropped. 

In  the  following  year,  B.C.  48,  when  Cleopatra  was 
twenty-one  years  of  age  and  her  co- regnant  brother 
fourteen,  important  events  occurred  in  Alexandria  of 
which  history  has  left  us  no  direct  record.  It  would 
appear  that  the  brother  and  sister  quarrelled,  and  that 
the  palace  divided  itself  into  two  opposing  parties.  The 
young  Ptolemy,  backed  by  the  eunuch  Potheinos,  the 
rhetorician  Theodotos,  and  the  soldier  Achillas,  set 
himself  up  as  sole  sovereign  of  Egypt ;  and  Cleopatra 
was  obliged  to  fly  for  her  life  into  Syria.  We  have 
no  knowledge  of  these  momentous  events :  the  struggle 
in  the  palace,  the  days  in  which  the  young  queen 
walked  in  deadly  peril,  the  adventurous  escape,  and 
the  flight  from  Egypt.  We  know  only  that  when  the 
curtain  is  raised  once  more  upon  the  royal  drama,  the 
young  Ptolemy  is  King  of  Egypt,  and,  with  his  army, 
is  stationed  on  the  eastern  frontier  to  prevent  the 
incursion  of  his  exiled  sister,  who  has  raised  an  ex- 
peditionary force  in  Syria  and  is  marching  back  to 
her  native  land  to  seize  again  the  throne  which  she 
had  lost.  There  is  something  which  appeals  very 
greatly  to  the  imagination  in  the  thought  of  this 
spirited  young  Queen's  rapid  return  to  the  perilous 
scenes  from  which  she  had  so  recently  escaped ;  and 
the  historian  feels  at  once  that  he  is  dealing  with  a 
powerful  character  in  this  woman  who  could  so  speedily 
raise  an  army  of  mercenaries,  and  could  dare  to  march 
back  in  battle  array  across  the  desert  towards  the  land 
which  had  cast  her  out. 


1 


65 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  DEATH  OF  POMPEY  AND  THE  ARRIVAL  OF 
CiESAR  IN  EGYPT. 

The  fortress  of  Pelusium,  near  which  the  opposing 
armies  of  Ptolemy  and  Cleopatra  were  arrayed,  stood 
on  low  desert  ground  overlooking  the  sea,  not  far  east 
of  the  modern  Port  Said.  It  was  the  most  easterly 
port  and  stronghold  of  the  Delta ;  and,  being  built 
upon  the  much-frequented  highroad  which  skirted  the 
coast  between  Egypt  and  Syria,  it  formed  the  Asiatic 
gateway  of  the  Ptolemaic  kingdom.  The  young 
Ptolemy  XIV.  had  stationed  himself,  with  his  advisers 
and  his  soldiers,  in  this  fortress,  in  order  to  oppose 
the  entrance  of  his  sister  Cleopatra,  who,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  had  marched  with  a  strong  army  back 
to  Egypt  from  Syria,  whither  she  had  fled.  On  Sept- 
ember 28th,  B.C.  48,  when  Cleopatra's  forces,  having 
arrived  at  Pelusium,  were  preparing  to  attack  the 
fortress,  and  were  encamped  upon  the  sea-coast  a  few 
miles  to  the  east  of  the  town,  an  event  occurred  which 
was  destined  to  change  the  whole  course  of  Egyptian 
history.  Round  the  barren  headland  to  the  west  of  the 
little  port  a  Seleucian  galley  hove  into  sight,  and  cast 
anchor  a  short  distance  from  the   shore.     Upon  the 

e 


66       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


deck  of  this  vessel  stood  the  defeated  Pompey  the 
Great  and  Cornelia  his  wife,  who,  flying  from  the  rout 
of  Pharsalia,  had  come  to  claim  the  hospitality  of  the 
Egyptian  King.  The  young  monarch  appears  to  have 
been  warned  of  his  approach,  for  Pompey  had  touched 
at  Alexandria,  and  there  hearing  that  Ptolemy  had  gone 
to  Pelusium,  had  probably  sent  a  messenger  to  him 
overland  and  himself  had  sailed  round  by  sea.  The 
greatest  flurry  had  been  caused  in  the  royal  camp  by 
the  news,  and  for  the  moment  the  invasion  of  Cleopatra 
and  the  impending  battle  with  her  forces  were  quite 
forgotten  in  the  excitement  of  the  arrival  of  the  man 
who  for  so  long  had  been  the  mighty  patron  of  the 
Ptolemaic  Court. 

Egypt,  like  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  had  been  watching 
with  deep  interest  the  warfare  waged  between  the  two 
Roman  giants,  Pompey  and  Caesar,  confident  in  the  suc- 
cess of  the  former ;  and  the  messenger  of  the  defeated 
general  must  have  brought  the  first  authentic  news  of  the 
result  of  the  eagerly  awaited  battle.  The  sympathies  of 
the  Alexandrians  were  all  on  the  side  of  the  Pompeians, 
for  the  fugitive,  who  now  asked  a  return  of  his  former 
favours,  had  always  been  to  them  the  gigantic  repre- 
sentative of  Roman  patronage.  They  knew  little,  if 
anything,  about  Caesar,  who  had  spent  so  many  years 
in  the  far  north-west ;  but  Pompey  was  Rome  itself  to 
them,  and  had  always  shown  himself  particularly  de- 
sirous of  acting,  when  occasion  arose,  in  their  behalf. 
For  many  years  he  had  been,  admittedly,  the  most 
powerful  personage  in  Rome,  and  the  civilised  world 
had  grovelled  at  his  feet.  Then  came  the  inevitable 
quarrel  with  Julius  Caesar,  a  man  who  could  not  tolerate 
the  presence  of  a  rival.    Civil  war  broke  out,  and  the 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  67 


two  armies  met  on  the  plains  of  Pharsalia.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  record  here  how  Pompey's  patrician  cav- 
alry, in  whom  he  confidently  trusted,  was  defeated  by 
Caesar's  hardened  legions ;  how  the  foreign  allies  were 
awed  into  inactivity  by  the  spectacle  of  the  superb  con- 
test between  Romans  and  Romans ;  how  the  debonnaire 
Pompey,  realising  his  defeat,  passed,  dazed,  to  his 
pavilion  and  sat  there  staring  in  front  of  him,  until 
the  enemy  had  penetrated  to  his  very  door,  when,  utter- 
ing the  despairing  cry,  "  What !  even  into  the  camp  ?  " 
he  galloped  from  the  field ;  and  how  Caesar's  men  found 
the  enemy's  tents  decked  in  readiness  for  the  celebration 
of  their  anticipated  victory,  the  doorways  hung  with 
garlands  of  myrtle,  the  floors  spread  with  rich  carpets, 
and  the  tables  covered  with  goblets  of  wine  and  dishes  of 
food.  Pompey  had  fled  to  Larissa  and  thence  to  the 
sea,  where  he  boarded  a  merchantman  and  set  sail  for 
Mitylene.  Here  picking  up  his  wife  Cornelia,  he  made 
his  way  to  Cyprus,  where  he  transhipped  to  the  galley  in 
which  he  crossed  to  Egypt.  He  had  expected,  very 
naturally,  to  be  received  with  courtesy  by  Ptolemy,  who 
was  to  be  regarded  as  his  political  protege ;  and  he  had 
some  undefined  but  cogent  plans  of  gathering  his  forces 
together  again  and  giving  battle  a  second  time  to  his 
enemies.  At  Pharsalia  he  had  thought  his  power  irre- 
vocably destroyed,  but  on  his  way  to  Egypt  he  learnt 
that  Cato  had  rallied  a  considerable  number  of  his 
troops,  and  that  his  fleet,  which  had  not  come  into 
action,  was  still  loyal ;  and  he  therefore  hoped  that  with 
Ptolemy's  expected  help  he  might  yet  regain  the  mastery 
of  the  Roman  world. 

As  soon  as  his  approach  was  reported  to  the  Egyptian 
King,  a  council  of  ministers  was  called,  in  order  to  decide 


68       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


the  manner  in  which  they  should  receive  the  fallen 
general.  There  were  present  at  this  meeting  the  three 
scoundrelly  advisers  of  the  youthful  monarch  whom  we 
have  already  met :  Potheinos,  the  eunuch,  who  was  a 
kind  of  prime  minister;  Achillas,  the  Egyptian,  who 
commanded  the  King's  troops ;  and  Theodotos  of  Chios, 
the  professional  master  of  rhetoric,  and  tutor  to  Ptolemy. 
These  three  men  appear  to  have  organised  the  plot  by 
which  Cleopatra  had  been  driven  from  Egypt ;  and, 
having  the  boy  Ptolemy  well  under  their  thumbs,  they 
seem  to  have  been  acting  with  zeal  in  his  name  for  the 
advancement  of  their  own  fortunes.  "  It  was,  indeed,  a 
miserable  thing,"  says  Plutarch,  "  that  the  fate  of  the 
great  Pompey  should  be  left  to  the  determinations  of 
these  three  men ;  and  that  he,  riding  at  anchor  at  a  dis- 
tance from  the  shore,  should  be  forced  to  wait  the  sen- 
tence of  this  tribunal." 

Some  of  the  councillors  suggested  that  he  should  be 
politely  requested  to  seek  refuge  in  some  other  country, 
for  it  was  obvious  that  Caesar  might  deal  harshly  with 
them  if  they  were  to  befriend  him.  Others  proposed  that 
they  should  receive  him  and  cast  in  their  lot  with  him, 
for  it  was  to  be  supposed,  and  indeed  such  was  the  fact, 
that  he  still  had  a  very  good  chance  of  recovering  from 
the  fiasco  of  Pharsalia;  and  there  was  the  danger  that, 
if  they  did  not  do  so,  he  might  accept  the  assistance  of 
their  enemy  Cleopatra.  Theodotos,  however,  pointing 
out,  in  a  carefully  reasoned  speech,  that  both  these 
courses  were  fraught  with  danger  to  themselves,  pro- 
posed that  they  should  curry  favour  with  Caesar  by 
murdering  their  former  patron,  thus  bringing  the  con- 
test to  a  close,  and  thereby  avoiding  any  risk  of  backing 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  69 


the  wrong  horse;  "and,"  he  added  with  a  smile,  "a 
dead  man  cannot  bite."  The  councillors  readily  ap- 
proved this  method  of  dealing  with  the  difficult  situation, 
and  they  committed  its  execution  to  Achillas,  who  there- 
upon engaged  the  services  of  a  certain  Roman  officer 
named  Septimius,  who  had  once  held  a  command  under 
Pompey,  and  another  Roman  centurion  named  Salvius. 
The  three  men,  with  a  few  attendants,  then  boarded  a 
small  boat  and  set  out  towards  the  galley. 

When  they  had  come  alongside  Septimius  stood  up  and 
saluted  Pompey  by  his  military  title  ;  and  Achillas  there- 
upon invited  him  to  come  ashore  in  the  smaller  vessel, 
saying  that  the  large  galley  could  not  make  the  harbour 
owing  to  the  shallow  water.  It  was  now  seen  that  a 
number  of  Egyptian  battleships  were  cruising  at .  no 
great  distance,  and  that  the  sandy  shore  was  alive  with 
troops;  and  Pompey,  whose  suspicions  were  aroused, 
realised  that  he  could  not  now  turn  back,  but  must  needs 
place  himself  in  the  hands  of  the  surly-looking  men  who 
had  come  out  to  meet  him.  His  wife  Cornelia  was  dis- 
traught with  fears  for  his  safety,  but  he,  bidding  her  to 
await  events  without  anxiety,  lowered  himself  into  the 
boat,  taking  with  him  two  centurions,  a  freedman  named 
Philip,  and  a  slave  called  Scythes.  As  he  bade  farewell 
to  Cornelia  he  quoted  to  her  a  couple  of  lines  from 
Sophocles — 

"  He  that  once  enters  at  a  tyrant's  door 
Becomes  a  slave,  though  he  were  free  before  ; " 

and  so  saying,  he  set  out  towards  the  shore.  A  deep 
silence  fell  upon  the  little  company  as  the  boat  passed 
over  the  murky  water,  which  at  this  time  of  year  is 


70       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


beginning  to  be  discoloured  by  the  Nile  mud  brought 
down  by  the  first  rush  of  the  annual  floods  ;  ^  and  in  the 
damp  heat  of  an  Egyptian  summer  day  the  dreary  little 
town  and  the  barren  colourless  shore  must  have  appeared 
peculiarly  uninviting.  In  order  to  break  the  oppressive 
silence  Pompey  turned  to  Septimius,  and,  looking 
earnestly  upon  him,  said :  "  Surely  I  am  not  mistaken 
in  believing  you  to  have  been  formerly  my  fellow- 
soldier  ?  "  Septimius  made  no  reply,  but  silently  nodded 
his  head ;  whereupon  Pompey,  opening  a  little  book, 
began  to  read,  and  so  continued  until  they  had  reached 
the  shore.  As  he  was  about  to  leave  the  boat  he  took 
hold  of  the  hand  of  his  freedman  Philip;  but  even  as  he 
did  so  Septimius  drew  his  sword  and  stabbed  him  in  the 
back,  whereupon  both  Salvius  and  Achillas  attacked  him. 
Pompey  spoke  no  word,  but,  groaning  a  little,  hid  his 
face  with  his  mantle,  and  fell  into  the  bottom  of  the 
vessel,  where  he  was  speedily  done  to  death. 

Cornelia,  standing  upon  the  deck  of  the  galley,  wit- 
nessed the  murder,  and  uttered  so  great  a  cry  that  it 
was  heard  upon  the  shore.  Then,  seeing  the  murderers 
stoop  over  the  body  and  rise  again  with  the  severed  head 
held  aloft,  she  called  to  her  ship's  captain  to  weigh 
anchor,  and  in  a  few  moments  the  galley  was  making  for 
the  open  sea  and  was  speedily  out  of  the  range  of  pursuit. 
Pompey's  decapitated  body,  stripped  of  all  clothing,  was 
now  bundled  into  the  water,  and  a  short  time  afterwards 
was  washed  up  by  the  breakers  upon  the  sands  of  the 
beach,  where  it  was  soon  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  idlers. 
Meanwhile  Achillas  and  his  accomplices  carried  the  head 
up  to  the  royal  camp. 

^  The  end  of  September,  owing  to  irregularities  in  the  calendar,  of  which  we 
shall  presently  hear  more,  corresponded  to  the  middle  of  July. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  71 


The  freedman  Philip  was  not  molested,  and,  presently 
making  his  way  to  the  beach,  wandered  to  and  fro  along 
the  desolate  shore  until  all  had  retired  to  the  town. 
Then,  going  over  to  the  body  and  kneeling  down  beside 
it,  he  washed  it  with  sea-water  and  wrapped  it  in  his  own 
shirt  for  want  of  a  winding-sheet.  As  he  was  searching 
for  wood  wherewith  to  make  some  sort  of  funeral  pyre,  he 
met  with  an  old  Roman  soldier  who  had  once  served 
under  the  murdered  general ;  and  together  these  two  men 
carried  down  to  the  water's  edge  such  pieces  of  wreckage 
and  fragments  of  rotten  wood  as  they  could  find,  and 
placing  the  body  upon  the  pile  set  fire  to  it. 

Upon  the  next  morning  one  of  the  Pompeian  generals, 
Lucius  Lentulus,  who  was  bringing  up  the  two  thousand 
soldiers  whom  Pompey  had  gathered  together  as  a  body- 
guard, arrived  in  a  second  galley  before  Pelusium ;  and  as 
he  was  being  rowed  ashore  he  observed  the  still  smoking 
remains  of  the  pyre.  "Who  is  this  that  has  found  his 
end  here  ? "  he  said,  being  still  in  ignorance  of  the 
tragedy,  and  added  with  a  sigh,  "  Possibly  even  thou, 
Pompeius  Magnus ! "  And  upon  stepping  ashore,  he 
too  was  promptly  murdered. 

A  few  days  later,  on  October  2nd,  Julius  Caesar,  in  hot 
pursuit,  arrived  at  Alexandria,  where  he  heard  with 
genuine  disgust  of  the  miserable  death  of  his  great 
enemy.  Shortly  afterwards  Theodotos  presented  him- 
self to  the  conqueror,  carrying  with  him  Pompey's  head 
and  signet-ring  ;  but  Caesar  turned  in  distress  from  the 
gruesome  head,  and  taking  only  the  ring  in  his  hand,  was 
for  a  moment  moved  to  tears.^  He  then  appears  to  have 
dismissed  the  astonished  Theodotos  from  his  presence  like 

1  According  to  Plutarch  and  others ;  but  the  incident  is  not  mentioned  in 
Caesar's  memoirs. 


72       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


an  offending  slave :  and  it  was  not  long  before  that  dis- 
illusioned personage  fled  for  his  life  from  Egypt.  For 
some  years,  it  may  be  mentioned,  he  wandered  as  a 
vagabond  through  Syria  and  Asia  Minor ;  but  at  last, 
after  the  death  of  Caesar,  he  was  recognised  by  Marcus 
Brutus,  and,  as  a  punishment  for  having  instigated  the 
murder  of  the  great  Pompey,  was  crucified  with  every 
possible  ignominy.  Caesar  seems  to  have  arranged  that 
the  ashes  of  his  rival  should  be  sent  to  his  wife  Cornelia, 
by  whom  they  were  ultimately  deposited  at  his  country 
house  near  Alba ;  and  he  also  gave  orders  that  the 
piteous  head  should  be  buried  near  the  sea,  in  the  grove 
of  Nemesis,  outside  the  eastern  walls  of  Alexandria, 
where,  in  the  shade  of  the  trees,  a  monument  was  set 
up  to  him  and  the  ground  around  it  laid  out.  Caesar 
then  offered  his  protection  and  friendship  to  all  those 
partisans  of  Pompey  whom  the  Egyptians  had  impris- 
oned, and  he  expressed  his  great  satisfaction  at  being 
able  thus  to  save  the  lives  of  his  fellow-countrymen. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  appreciate  the  consternation 
caused  by  Caesar's  attitude.  Potheinos  and  Achillas 
at  once  realised  that  the  disgrace  of  Theodotos  awaited 
them  unless  they  acted;  with  the  utmost  circumspection, 
biding  their  time  until,  as  was  expected,  Caesar  should 
take  his  speedy  departure,  or  until  they  might  deal  with 
this  new  disturber  of  their  peace  in  the  same  manner  in 
which  they  had  disposed  of  the  old.  But  Caesar  had  no 
intention  of  leaving  Egypt  in  any  haste,  nor  did  he 
give  them  the  desired  opportunity  of  anticipating  the 
Ides  of  March.  With  that  audacious  nonchalance  which 
so  often  baffled  his  observers,  he  quietly  decided  to  take 
up  his  residence  in  the  Palace  upon  the  Lochias  Pro- 
montory at  Alexandria,  at  that  moment  occupied  by  only 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  73 


two  members  of  the  Royal  Family,  the  younger  Ptolemy 
and  his  sister  Arsinoe ;  and,  as  soon  as  sufficient  troops 
had  arrived  to  support  him,  he  left  his  galley  and  landed 
at  the  steps  of  the  imposing  quay.  Two  amalgamated 
legions,  3200  strong,  and  800  Celtic  and  German  cavalry, 
disembarked  with  him,  this  small  force  having  been 
considered  by  Caesar  sufficient  for  the  rounding  up  of 
the  Pompeian  fugitives,  and  for  the  secondary  purposes 
for  which  he  had  come  to  Egypt.^ 

Caesar's  object  in  hastening  across  the  Mediterranean 
had  been,  primarily,  the  capture  of  Pompey  and  his 
colleagues,  and  the  prevention  of  a  rally  under  the 
shelter  of  the  King  of  Egypt's  not  inconsiderable 
armaments.  It  appears  to  have  been  his  opinion  that 
speed  of  pursuit  would  be  more  effective  than  strength 
of  arms,  and  that  his  undelayed  appearance  at  Alexandria 
would  more  simply  discourage  the  undetermined  Egyptians 
from  rendering  assistance  to  their  former  friend  than  a 
display  of  force  at  a  later  date.  Fresh  from  the  triumph 
of  Pharsalia,  with  the  memory  of  that  astounding  victory 
to  warm  his  spirits,  he  did  not  anticipate  any  great 
difficulty  in  subjecting  the  Ptolemaic  Court  to  his  will, 
nor  in  demonstrating  to  them  that  he  himself,  and  not 
the  defeated  Pompey,  represented  the  authentic  might 
of  Rome.  It  would  seem  that  he  expected  speedily  to 
frustrate  any  further  resort  to  arms,  and  to  manifest  his 
authority  by  acting  ostentatiously  in  the  name  of  the 
Roman  people.  He  himself  should  assume  the  prerog- 
atives lately  held  by  Pompey,  and  should  play  the  part 
of  benevolent  patron  to  the  court  of  Alexandria  so 

1  I  do  not  know  any  record  of  what  became  of  the  2000  men  of  Pompey's 
bodyguard.  They  probably  fled  back  to  Europe  on  the  death  of  their 
commanding  officer. 


74       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


admirably  sustained  by  his  fallen  rival  for  so  many 
years.  There  were  several  outstanding  matters  in 
Egypt  which,  on  behalf  of  his  home  government,  he 
could  regulate  and  adjust :  and  there  is  little  doubt  that 
he  hoped  by  so  doing  to  establish  a  despotic  reputation 
in  that  important  country  which  would  retain  for  him, 
as  apparent  autocrat  of  Rome,  a  personal  control  of  its 
affairs  for  many  years  to  come.  In  spite  of  all  that  has 
been  said  to  the  contrary,  I  am  of  opinion  that  his 
return  to  Rome  was  not  urgent ;  indeed  it  seems  to  me 
that  it  could  be  postponed  for  a  short  time  with  ad- 
vantage. Pompey  had  been  a  great  favourite  with  the 
Italians,  and  it  was  just  as  well  that  the  turmoil  caused 
by  his  defeat  and  death  should  be  allowed  to  subside, 
and  that  the  bitter  memories  of  a  sanguinary  war,  which 
had  so  palpably  been  brought  about  by  personal  rivalry, 
should  be  somewhat  forgotten  before  the  victor  made 
his  spectacular  entry  into  Rome.  At  this  time  he  was 
not  at  all  popular  in  the  capital,  and  indeed,  six  months 
previously  he  had  been  generally  regarded  as  a  criminal 
and  adventurer ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  Pompey  had 
been  the  people's  darling,  and  it  would  take  some  time 
for  public  opinion  to  be  reversed. 

When,  therefore,  Cassar  heard  that  the  treacherous 
deeds  of  the  Egyptian  ministers  had  rendered  his  primary 
action  unnecessary,  he  determined  to  enter  Alexandria 
with  some  show  of  state,  to  take  up  his  residence  there 
for  a  few  weeks,  and  to  interfere  in  its  internal  affairs 
for  his  own  advancement  and  for  the  consolidation  of 
his  power. 

With  this  object  in  view  his  four  thousand  troops  were 
landed,  and  he  set  out  in  procession  towards  the  Royal 
Palace,  the  lictors  carrying  the  fasces  and  axes  before 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  75 


him  as  in  the  consular  promenades  at  Rome.^  No 
sooner,  however,  were  these  ominous  symbols  observed 
by  the  mob  than  a  rush  was  made  towards  them ;  and 
for  a  time  the  attitude  of  the  crowd  became  ugly  and 
menacing.  The  young  King  and  his  Court  were  still  at 
Pelusium,  where  his  army  was  defending  the  frontier 
from  the  expected  attack  of  Cleopatra's  invading  forces  ; 
but  there  were  in  Alexandria  a  certain  number  of  troops 
which  had  been  left  there  as  a  garrison,  and  both 
amongst  these  men  and  amongst  the  heterogeneous 
townspeople  there  must  have  been  many  who  realised 
the  significance  of  the  fasces.  The  city  was  full  of 
Roman  outlaws  and  renegades,  to  whom  this  reminder 
of  the  length  of  her  arm  could  but  bring  foreboding 
and  terror.  To  them  Caesar's  formal  entry  meant  the 
establishment  of  that  law  from  which  they  had  fled ; 
while  to  many  a  merry  member  of  the  crowd  the  stately 
procession  appeared  to  bring  to  Egypt  at  last  that 
dismal  shadow  of  Rome  ^  by  which  it  had  so  long 
been  menaced.  On  all  sides  it  was  declared  that 
this  state  entry  irjjo  the  Egyptian  capital  was  an  insult 
to  the  King's  majesty;  and  so,  indeed,  it  was,  though 
little  did  that  trouble  Caesar,  who  was  well  aware  now 
of  his  unassailable  position  in  the  councils  of  Rome. 

The  cit^  was  in  a  ferment,  and  for  some  days  after 
Caesar  had  taken  up  his  quarters  at  the  Palace  rioting 
continued  in  the  streets,  a  number  of  his  soldiers  being 
killed  in  different  parts  of  the  town.  He  therefore  sent 
post-haste  to  Asia  Minor  for  reinforcements,  and  took 

*  As  Consul  he  would  have  been  entitled  to  twelve  lictors,  as  Dictator  to 
twenty-four  ;  but  we  are  not  told  which  number  he  employed  on  this  occasion. 

*  I  quote  the  telling  phrase  used  by  Warde  Fowler  in  his  '  Social  Life  at 
Rome.' 


76       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


such  steps  as  were  necessary  for  securing  his  position 
from  attack.  It  is  probable  that  he  did  not  suppose  the 
Alexandrians  would  have  the  audacity  to  make  war  upon 
him,  or  attempt  to  drive  him  from  the  city  ;  but  at  the 
same  time  he  desired  to  take  no  risks,  for  he  seems  at 
the  moment  to  have  been  heartily  sick  of  warfare  and 
slaughter.  The  Palace  and  royal  barracks  in  which  his 
troops  were  quartered,  being  built  mainly  upon  the 
Lochias  Promontory,  were  easily  able  to  be  defended 
from  attack  by  land — for,  no  doubt,  in  so  turbulent  a 
city,  the  royal  quarter  was  protected  by  massive  walls ; 
and  at  the  same  time  the  position  commanded  the 
eastern  half  of  the  Great  Harbour  and  the  one  side  of 
its  entrance  over  against  the  Pharos  Lighthouse.  His 
ships  lay  moored  under  the  walls  of  the  Palace ;  and  a 
means  of  escape  was  thus  kept  open  which,  if  the  worst 
came  to  the  worst,  might  be  used  with  comparative 
safety  upon  any  dark  night.  I  think  the  turbulence 
of  the  mob,  therefore,  did  not  much  trouble  him,  and 
he  was  able  to  set  about  the  task  which  he  desired  to 
perform  with  a  certain  degree  of  quietude.  The  Civil 
War  had  been  a  very  great  strain  upon  his  nerves,  and 
he  must  have  looked  forward  to  a  few  weeks  of  actual 
holiday  here  in  the  luxurious  royal  apartments  which 
he  had  so  casually  appropriated.  Summer  at  Alexandria 
is  in  many  ways  a  delightful  time  of  year ;  and  one  may 
therefore  picture  Caesar,  at  all  times  fond  of  luxury  and 
opulence,  now  heartily  enjo3nng  these  warm  breezy  days 
upon  the  beautiful  Lochias  Promontory.  The  crisis 
of  his  life  had  been  passed ;  he  was  now  absolute  master 
of  the  Roman  world ;  and  his  triumphant  entry  into 
the  capital,  when,  in  a  few  weeks'  time,  the  passions 
of  the  mob  had  cooled,  was  an  anticipation  pleasant 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  77 


enough  to  set  his  restless  heart  at  ease,  while  he  applied 
himself  to  the  agreeable  little  task  of  regulating  the 
affairs  in  Egypt.  He  had  sent  a  courier  to  Rome 
announcing  the  death  of  Pompey,  but  it  does  not  seem 
that  this  messenger  was  told  to  proceed  with  any  great 
rapidity,  for  he  did  not  arrive  in  the  capital  until  near 
the  middle  of  November.^ 

His  first  action  was  to  send  messengers  to  Pelusium 
strongly  urging  both  Ptolemy  and  Cleopatra  to  cease 
their  warfare,  and  to  come  to  Alexandria  in  order  to 
lay  their  respective  cases  before  him.  He  chose  to 
regard  the  settlement  of  the  quarrel  between  the  two 
sovereigns  as  a  particular  obligation  upon  himself,  for 
it  was  during  his  previous  consulship  that  the  late 
monarch,  Auletes,  had  entrusted  his  children  to  the 
Roman  people  and  had  made  the  Republic  the  executors 
of  his  will ;  and,  moreover,  that  will  had  been  confided 
to  the  care  of  Pompey,  whose  position  as  patron  of  the 
Egyptian  Court  Caesar  was  now  anxious  to  fill.  In 
response  to  the  summons  Ptolemy  came  promptly  to 
Alexandria,  with  his  minister  Potheinos,  arriving,  I 
suppose,  on  about  October  5th,  in  order  to  ascertain 
what  on  earth  Caesar  was  doing  in  the  Palace;  and 
meanwhile  Achillas  was  left  in  command  of  the  army 
at  Pelusium.  On  reaching  Alexandria  they  seem  to 
have  been  invited  by  Caesar  to  take  up  their  residence 
in  the  Palace  into  which  he  had  intruded,  and  which 
was  now  patrolled  by  his  Roman  troops ;  and,  apparently 
upon  the  advice  of  the  unctuous  Potheinos,  the  two 
of  them   made  themselves  as  pleasant  as  possible  to 

1  In  interpreting  the  situation  thus,  I  am  aware  that  I  place  myself  at 
variance  with  the  accepted  view  which  attributes  to  C»sar  an  eagerness  to 
return  quickly  to  Rome. 


78       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATP^A 


their  new  patron.  Caesar  at  once  asked  Ptolemy  to 
disband  his  army,  but  to  this  Potheinos  would  not 
agree,  and  immediately  sent  word  to  Achillas  to  bring 
his  forces  to  Alexandria.  Caesar,  hearing  of  this,  obliged 
the  young  King  to  despatch  two  officers,  Dioscorides  and 
Serapion,  to  order  Achillas  to  remain  at  that  place. 
These  messengers,  however,  were  intercepted  by  the 
agents  of  Potheinos,  one  being  killed  and  the  other 
wounded  ;  and  two  or  three  days  later  Achillas  arrived 
at  the  capital  at  the  head  of  the  first  batch  of  his  army 
of  some  twenty  thousand  foot  and  two  thousand  horse,^ 
taking  up  his  residence  in  that  part  of  the  city  unoccupied 
by  the  Romans.  Caesar  thereupon  fortified  his  position, 
deciding  to  hold  as  much  of  the  city  as  his  small  force 
could  defend — namely,  the  Palace  and  the  Royal  Area 
behind  it,  including  the  Theatre,  the  Forum,  and 
probably  a  portion  of  the  Street  of  Canopus.  The 
Egyptian  army  presented  a  pugnacious  but  not  extremely 
formidable  array,^  consisting  as  it  did  of  the  Gabinian 
troops,  who  had  now  become  entirely  expatriated, 
and  had  assumed  to  some  extent  the  habits  and  liberties 
of  their  adopted  country ;  a  number  of  criminals  and 
outlaws  from  Italy  who  had  been  enrolled  as  mercenary 
troops  ;  a  horde  of  Syrian  and  Cilician  pirates  and 
brigands ;  and,  probably,  a  few  native  levies.  But  as 
Caesar  now  had  with  him  in  the  Palace  King  Ptolemy, 
the  little  Prince  Ptolemy,  the  Princess  Arsinoe,  and  the 
minister  Potheinos,  who  could  be  regarded  as  hostages 
for  his  safety,  and  four  thousand  of  his  war- hardened 
veterans,  ensconced  in  a  fortified  position  and  supported 

^  It  is  not  certain  whether  the  20CX3  horse  are  to  be  included  or  not  in  the 
total  of  20,000. 

*  In  spite  of  the  statement  to  the  contrary  in  De  Bello  Alexandrino. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  79 


by  a  business-like  little  fleet  of  galleys,  I  cannot  see  that 
he  had  any  cause  at  the  moment  for  alarm.  One  serious 
difficulty,  however,  presented  itself.  Immediately  on 
arriving  in  Egypt  he  had  sent  orders  to  Cleopatra  to 
repair  to  the  Palace  ;  and  his  task  as  arbiter  in  the  royal 
dispute  could  not  be  performed  until  she  arrived,  nor 
could  he  expect  to  assert  his  authority  until  her  presence 
completed  the  group  of  interested  persons  under  his 
enforced  protection.  Yet  she  could  not  dare  to  place 
herself  in  the  hands  of  Achillas,  nor  rely  upon  him  for  a 
safe  escort  through  the  lines ;  and  thus  Caesar  found 
himself  in  a  dilemma. 

The  situation,  however,  was  relieved  by  the  pluck  and 
audacity  of  the  young  Queen.  Realising  that  her  only 
hope  of  regaining  her  kingdom  lay  in  a  personal  pre- 
sentation of  her  case  to  the  Roman  arbiter,  she  deter- 
mined, by  hook  or  by  crook,  to  make  her  entry  into  the 
Palace.  Taking  ship  from  Pelusium  to  Alexandria,  prob- 
ably at  the  end  of  the  first  week  of  October,  she  entered 
a  small  boat  when  still  some  distance  from  the  city,  and 
thus,  about  nightfall,  slipped  into  the  Great  Harbour, 
accompanied  only  by  one  friend,  Apollodorus  the  Sicilian. 
She  seems  to  have  been  aware  that  her  brother  and  Po- 
theinos  were  in  residence  at  the  Palace,  together  with  a 
goodly  number  of  their  own  attendants  and  servants  ; 
but  there  were  no  means  of  telling  how  far  Caesar  con- 
trolled the  situation.  Being  unaccustomed  to  the 
presence  of  a  power  more  autocratic  than  that  of  her 
own  royal  house,  she  does  not  seem  to  have  realised  that 
Casar  was  in  absolute  command  of  the  Lochias,  and  that 
not  he  but  Ptolemy  was  the  guarded  guest ;  and  she  felt 
that  in  landing  at  the  Palace  quays  she  was  running  the 
gravest  risk  of  falling  into  the  hands  of  her  brother's 


8o       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


party  and  of  being  murdered  before  she  could  reach 
Csesar's  presence.  This  fear  indeed  may  well  have  been 
justified,  for  there  is  no  doubt  that  Ptolemy  and  Potheinos 
had  considerable  liberty  of  action  within  the  precincts  of 
the  Palace ;  and,  if  the  rumour  had  spread  that  Cleopatra 
was  come,  neither  of  them  would  have  hesitated  to  put  a 
dagger  into  her  ribs  in  the  first  dark  corridor  through 
which  she  had  to  pass.  Waiting,  therefore,  upon  the 
still  water  under  the  walls  of  the  Palace  until  darkness 
had  fallen,  she  instructed  Apollodorus  to  roll  her  up  in 
the  blankets  and  bedding  which  he  had  brought  for  her  in 
the  boat  as  a  protection  against  the  night  air,  and  around 
the  bundle  she  told  him  to  tie  a  piece  of  rope  which,  I 
suppose,  they  found  in  the  boat.  She  was  a  very  small 
woman,  and  Apollodorus  apparently  experienced  no 
difficulty  in  shouldering  the  burden  as  he  stepped  ashore. 
Bundles  of  this  kind  were  then,  as  they  are  now,  the 
usual  baggage  of  a  common  man  in  Egypt,  and  were  not 
likely  to  attract  notice.  An  Alexandrian  native  at  the 
present  day  thus  carries  his  worldly  goods  tied  up  in  his 
bedding,  the  mat  or  piece  of  carpet  which  serves  him  for 
a  bedstead  being  wrapped  around  the  bundle  and  fastened 
with  a  rope,  and  in  ancient  times  the  custom  was  doubt- 
less identical.  Apollodorus,  who  must  have  been  a  power- 
ful man,  thus  walked  through  the  gates  of  the  Palace 
with  the  Queen  of  Egypt  upon  his  shoulders,  bearing 
himself  as  though  she  were  no  heavier  than  the  pots, 
pans,  and  clothing  which  were  usually  tied  up  in  this 
manner ;  and  when  challenged  by  the  sentries  he  probably 
replied  that  he  was  carrying  the  baggage  to  one  of  the 
soldiers  of  Csesar's  guard,  and  asked  to  be  directed  to  his 
apartments. 

Caesar's  astonishment  when  the  bundle  was  untied  in 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  8i 


his  presence,  revealing  the  dishevelled  jittle  Queen,  must 
have  been  unbounded ;  and  Plutarch  tells  us  that  he  was 
at  once  "  captivated  by  this  proof  of  Cleopatra's  bold  wit." 
One  pictures  her  bursting  with  laughter  at  her  adventure, 
and  speedily  winning  the  admiration  of  the  susceptible 
Roman,  who  delighted  almost  as  keenly  in  deeds  of  daring 
as  he  did  in  feminine  beauty.  All  night  long  they  were 
closeted  together,  she  relating  to  him  her  adventures 
since  she  was  driven  from  her  kingdom,  and  he  listening 
with  growing  interest,  and  already  perhaps  with  awaken- 
ing love.  And  here  it  will  be  as  well  to  leave  them  while 
some  description  is  given  of  the  appearance  and  character 
of  the  man  who  now  found  himself  looking  forward  to 
the  ensuing  days  of  his  holiday  in  Alexandria  with  an 
eagerness  which  it  must  have  been  difficult  for  him  to 
conceal. 


F 


82 


CHAPTER  V. 

CAIUS    JULIUS  C^SAR. 

When  Caesar  thus  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  adven- 
turous young  Queen  of  Egypt  he  was  a  man  of  advanced 
middle  age.  He  had  already  celebrated  his  fifty-fourth 
birthday,  having  been  born  on  July  12,  B.C.  102,  and  time 
was  beginning  to  mark  him  down.  The  appalling  dis- 
sipations of  his  youth  to  some  extent  may  have  added  to 
the  burden  of  his  years ;  and,  though  he  was  still  active 
and  keen  beyond  the  common  measure,  his  face  was 
heavily  lined  and  seamed,  and  his  muscles,  I  suppose, 
showed  something  of  that  tension  to  which  the  suppleness 
of  early  manhood  gives  place.  Yet  he  remained  graceful 
and  full  of  the  quality  of  youth,  and  he  carried  himself 
with  the  air  of  one  conscious  of  his  supremacy  in  the 
physical  activities  of  life.  He  was  a  lightly-built  man, 
of  an  aristocratic  type  which  is  to  be  found  indiscrimin- 
ately throughout  Europe,  and  which  nowadays,  by  a 
convention  of  thought,  is  usually  associated  in  the  mind 
with  the  cavalry  barracks  or  the  polo -ground.  He 
appeared  to  be,  and  was,  a  perfect  horseman.  It  is 
related  of  him  that  in  Gaul  he  bred  and  rode  a  horse 
which  no  other  man  in  the  army  dared  mount ;  and  it 
was  his  habit  to  demonstrate  the  firmness  of  his  seat  by 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  83 


clasping  his  hands  behind  his  back  and  setting  the  horse 
at  full  gallop.  Though  by  no  means  a  small  man,  he 
must  have  scaled  under  ten  stone,  and  in  other  days  and 
other  climes  he  might  have  been  mistaken  for  a  gentle- 
man jockey.  He  was  an  extremely  active  soldier,  a 
clever,  graceful  swordsman,  a  powerful  swimmer,  and  an 
excellent  athlete.  In  battle  he  had  proved  himself  brave, 
gallant,  and  cool-headed ;  and  in  his  earlier  years  he  had 
been  regarded  as  a  dashing  young  officer  who  was  neither 
restrained  in  the  performance  of  striking  deeds  of  bravery 
nor  averse  to  receiving  a  gallery  cheer  for  his  pains. 
Already  at  the  age  of  twenty-one  he  had  won  the  civic 
crown,  the  Victoria  Cross  of  that  period,  for  saving  a 
soldier's  life  at  the  storming  of  Mytelene.  In  action  he 
exposed  himself  bare-headed  amongst  his  men,  cheering 
them  and  encouraging  them  by  his  own  fine  spirits ;  and 
it  is  related  how  once  he  laid  hands  on  a  distraught 
standard-bearer  who  was  running  to  cover,  turned  him 
round,  and  suggested  to  him  that  he  had  mistaken  the 
direction  of  the  enemy. 

His  thin,  clean-shaven  face,  his  keen  dark  eyes,  his 
clear-cut  features,  his  hard,  firm  mouth  with  its  whimsical 
expression,  and  his  somewhat  pale  and  liverish  com- 
plexion, gave  him  at  first  sight  the  appearance  of  one  who, 
being  by  nature  a  sportsman  and  a  man  of  the  world,  a 
fearless  rider  and  a  keen  soldier,  had  enjoyed  every 
moment  of  an  adventurous  life.  He  was  particularly  well 
groomed  and  scrupulously  clean,  and  his  scanty  hair  was 
carefully  arranged  over  his  fine,  broad  head.  His  toga 
was  ornamented  with  an  unusually  broad  purple  stripe, 
and  was  edged  with  a  long  fringe.  He  loved  jewellery, 
and  on  one  occasion  bought  a  single  pearl  for  jf6o,ooo, 
which  he  afterwards  gave  to  a  lady  of  his  acquaintance. 


84       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Indeed,  it  is  said  that  he  only  invaded  Britain  because  he 
had  heard  that  fine  pearls  were  to  be  obtained  there. 
There  was  thus  a  certain  foppishness  in  his  appearance, 
and  a  slight  suggestion  of  conceit  and  personal  vanity 
marked  his  manner,  which  gave  the  impression  that  he 
was  not  unaware  of  his  good  looks,  nor  desirous  of  con- 
cealing the  fact  of  his  disreputable  successes  with  the  fair 
sex.  Yet  he  was  at  this  time  by  no  means  an  old  roue. 
His  great  head,  the  penetration  of  his  dark  eyes,  and  the 
occasional  sternness  of  his  expression  were  a  speedy  indi- 
cation that  much  lay  behind  these  inoffensive  airs  and 
graces ;  and  all  those  who  came  into  his  presence  must 
have  felt  the  power  of  his  will  and  brain,  even  though 
direct  observation  did  not  convey  to  them  more  than  the 
pleasing  outlines  of  an  elderly  cavalier's  figure.  Regarded 
in  certain  lights  and  on  certain  occasions,  the  expression 
of  his  furrowed  face  showed  the  imagination,  the  romantic 
vision,  and  the  artistic  culture  of  his  mind ;  but  usually 
the  qualities  which  were  impressed  upon  a  visitor  who 
conversed  with  him  at  close  quarters  were  those  of  keen- 
ness, determination,  and,  particularly,  gentlemanliness, 
combined  with  the  rather  charming  confidence  of  a 
man  of  fashion.  His  manner  at  all  times  was  quiet  and 
gracious ;  yet  there  was  a  certain  fire,  a  controlled 
vivacity  in  his  movements,  which  revealed  the  creative 
soldier  and  administrator  behind  the  ideal  aristocrat. 
His  voice  though  high,  and  sometimes  shrill,  was  occa- 
sionally very  pleasant  to  the  ear ;  but  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  he  was  a  wonderful  orator,  there  was  a 
correctness  in  his  choice  of  words  which  was  occasionally 
almost  pedantic.  His  manner  of  speech  was  direct  and 
straightforward,  and  his  honesty  of  purpose  and  loftiness 
of  principle  were   not   doubted   save    by  those  who 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  85 


chanced  to  be  aware  of  his  little  regard  for  moral 
integrity. 

Caesar  was,  in  fact,  an  extremely  unscrupulous  man. 
I  do  not  find  it  possible  to  accept  the  opinion  of  his 
character  held  by  most  historians,  or  to  suppose  him 
to  have  been  an  heroic  figure  who  lived  and  died  for 
his  lofty  and  patriotic  principles.  There  was  immense 
good  in  him,  and  he  had  the  unquestionable  merit  of 
being  a  great  man  with  vast  ambitions  for  the  orderly 
governance  of  the  nations  of  the  earth  ;  but  when  he 
threw  himself  with  such  enthusiasm  into  the  task  of 
winning  the  heart  of  the  harum-scarum  young  Queen 
of  Egypt,  it  seems  to  me  that  he  was  very  well  qualified 
to  deceive  her,  and  to  play  upon  her  emotions  with  all 
the  known  arts  and  wiles  of  a  wicked  world.  So 
notorious  was  his  habit  of  leading  women  astray,  that 
when  he  returned  to  Rome  from  his  Gallic  Wars  his 
soldiers  sang  a  marching  song  in  which  the  citizens 
were  warned  to  protect  their  ladies  from  him  lest  he 
should  treat  them  as  he  had  treated  all  the  women  of 
Gaul.  "  Urbani,  servate  uxores,"  they  sang;  "  Calvum 
tnoechum  adducimiis." 

He  had  no  particular  religion,  not  much  honour,  and 
few  high  principles ;  and  in  this  regard  all  that  can  be 
said  in  his  favour  is  that  he  was  perfectly  free  from  cant, 
never  pretended  to  be  virtuous,  nor  attempted  to  hide 
from  his  contemporaries  the  multitude  of  his  sins.  As 
a  young  man  he  indulged  in  every  kind  of  vice,  and 
so  scandalous  was  his  reputation  for  licentiousness  that 
it  was  a  matter  of  blank  astonishment  to  his  Roman 
friends  when,  nevertheless,  he  proved  himself  so  brave 
and  strenuous  a  soldier.  His  relationship  with  the 
mother  of  Brutus,  who  was  thought  to  be  his  own  son, 


86       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


shows  that  he  prosecuted  love  intrigues  while  yet  a  boy. 
At  one  time  he  passed  through  a  phase  of  extreme 
effeminacy,  with  its  attendant  horrors ;  and  there  was 
a  period  when  he  used  to  spend  long  hours  each  day 
in  the  practice  of  the  mysteries  of  the  toilet,  being 
scented  and  curled  and  painted  in  the  manner  pre- 
scribed by  the  most  degenerate  young  men  of  the 
aristocratic  classes.  Indeed  so  effeminate  was  he,  that 
after  staying  with  his  friend  Nicomedes,  the  King  of 
Bithynia,  he  was  jestingly  called  Queen  of  Bithynia; 
and  on  another  occasion  in  Rome  a  certain  wag  named 
Octavius  saluted  Pompey  as  King  and  Caesar  as  Queen 
of  Rome.  His  intrigues  with  the  wives  of  his  friends 
had  been  as  frequent  as  they  were  notorious.  No  good- 
looking  woman  was  safe  from  him,  least  of  all  those 
whom  he  had  the  opportunit}''  of  seeing  frequently, 
owing  to  his  friendship  for  their  husbands  or  other 
male  relatives.  Not  even  political  considerations  checked 
his  amorous  inclinations,  as  may  be  judged  from  the  fact 
that  he  made  a  victim  of  Mucia,  the  wife  of  Pompey, 
whose  friendship  he  most  eagerly  desired  at  that  time. 
"  He  was  the  inevitable  co-respondent  in  every  fashion- 
able divorce,"  writes  Oman ;  "  and  when  we  look  at 
the  list  of  the  ladies  whose  names  are  linked  with  his, 
we  can  only  wonder  at  the  state  of  society  in  Rome 
which  permitted  him  to  survive  unscathed  to  middle 
age.  The  marvel  is  that  he  did  not  end  in  some  dark 
corner,  with  a  dagger  between  his  ribs,  long  before  he 
attained  the  age  of  thirty."  Being  a  brilliant  oppor- 
tunist he  made  use  of  his  success  with  women  to 
promote  his  own  interests,  and  at  one  time  he  is  said 
to  have  conducted  love  intrigues  with  the  wives  of 
Pompey,   Crassus,   and   Gabinius,   all   leaders  of  his 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  87 


political  party.  Even  the  knowledge  of  the  habits  of 
the  young  fops  of  the  period,  which  he  had  acquired 
while  emulating  their  mode  of  life,  was  turned  to  good 
account  by  him  in  after  years.  At  the  battle  of  Phar- 
salia,  which  had  been  fought  but  a  few  weeks  before 
his  arrival  in  Egypt,  he  had  told  his  troops  who  were 
to  receive  the  charges  of  the  enemy's  patrician  cavalry 
that  they  should  not  attempt  to  hamstring  the  horses 
or  strike  at  their  legs,  but  should  aim  their  blows  at 
the  riders'  faces,  **  in  the  hopes,"  as  Plutarch  says, 
"  that  young  gentlemen  who  had  not  known  much  of 
battles  and  wounds,  but  came,  wearing  their  hair  long, 
in  the  flower  of  their  age  and  height  of  their  beauty, 
would  be  more  apprehensive  of  such  blows  and  not 
care  for  hazarding  both  a  danger  at  present  and  a 
blemish  for  the  future.  And  so  it  proved,  for  they 
turned  about,  and  covered  their  faces  to  safeguard  them." 

In  regard  to  money  matters  Caesar  was  entirely  without 
principle.  In  his  early  years  he  borrowed  vast  sums  on 
all  sides,  spent  them  recklessly,  and  seldom  paid  his 
debts  save  with  further  borrowed  money.  While  still 
a  young  man  he  owed  his  creditors  the  sum  of  ^^280,000; 
and  though  most  of  this  had  now  been  paid  off  by  means 
of  the  loot  from  the  Gallic  Wars,  there  had  been  times 
in  his  life  when  ruin  stared  him  in  the  face.  Most  of 
his  debts  were  incurred  in  the  first  place  in  buying  for 
himself  a  high  position  in  Roman  political  life,  and  in 
the  second  place  in  paying  the  electioneering  expenses 
of  candidates  for  office  who  would  be  likely  to  advance 
his  power.  He  engaged  the  favour  of  the  people  by 
giving  enormous  public  feasts,  and  on  one  occasion 
twenty -two  thousand  persons  were  entertained  at  his 
expense  at  a  single  meal.   While  he  was  sedile  he  paid 


88       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


for  three  hundred  and  twenty  gladiatorial  combats ;  and 
innumerable  fetes  and  shows  were  given  by  him  through- 
out his  life,  and  were  paid  for  by  the  tears  and  anguish 
of  his  conquered  enemies. 

He  was  one  of  the  most  ambitious  men  who  have  ever 
walked  the  stage  of  life,  his  devouring  passion  for  absolute 
power  being  at  all  times  abnormal ;  and  he  cared  not  one 
jot  in  what  manner  he  obtained  or  expended  money  so 
long  as  his  career  was  advanced  by  that  means.  He 
could  not  brook  the  thought  of  playing  a  secondary  part 
in  the  world's  affairs,  and  nothing  short  of  absolute  auto- 
cracy satisfied  his  aspirations.  While  crossing  the  Alps 
on  one  occasion  the  poverty  of  a  small  mountain  village 
was  pointed  out  to  him,  and  he  was  heard  to  remark 
that  he  would  rather  be  first  man  in  that  little  com- 
munity than  second  man  in  Rome.  On  another  occasion 
he  was  seen  to  burst  into  tears  while  reading  the  life  of 
Alexander  the  Great,  for  the  thought  was  intolerable  to 
him  that  another  man  should  have  conquered  the  world 
at  an  age  when  he  himself  had  done  nothing  of  the  kind. 
This  restless  "passion  after  honour,"  as  Plutarch  terms 
it,  was  not  apparent  in  his  manner  and  was  not  noticed 
save  by  those  who  knew  him  well.  He  was  too  gentle- 
manly, too  well  dressed,  too  beautifully  groomed,  to  give 
the  impression  of  one  who  was  seeking  indefatigably  for 
his  own  advancement,  and  at  whose  heart  the  demons 
of  insatiate  ambition  were  so  continuously  gnawing. 
"  When  I  see  his  hair  so  carefully  arranged,"  said  Cicero, 
"and  observe  him  adjusting  it  with  one  finger,  I  cannot 
imagine  it  should  enter  such  a  man's  thoughts  to  sub- 
vert the  Roman  State."  Yet  this  elegant  soldier,  whose 
manners  were  so  quietly  aristocratic,  whose  charm  was 
so  delectable,  would  sink  to  any  depths  of  moral  de- 


British  Museum,} 


JULIUS  C^SAR. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  89 


pravity,  whether  financial  or  otherwise,  in  order  to 
convert  the  world  into  his  footstool.  When  he  and 
Catullus  were  rival  candidates  for  the  office  of  Pontifex 
Maximus,  the  latter  offered  him  a  huge  sum  of  money 
to  retire  from  the  contest ;  but  Caesar,  spurning  the 
proffered  bribe  with  indignation,  replied  that  he  was 
about  to  borrow  a  larger  sum  than  that  in  order  to  buy 
the  votes  for  himself.  At  another  period  of  his  amazing 
career  he  desired  to  effect  the  downfall  of  Cicero,  who 
was  much  in  his  way,  and  circumstances  so  fell  out  that 
this  could  best  be  accomplished  by  the  appointment  of 
a  certain  young  scamp  named  Clodius  as  tribune.  Now 
Clodius  was  the  paramour  of  Caesar's  wife  Pompeia, 
whom  the  Dictator  had  made  co-respondent  in  the  action 
for  divorce  which  he  had  brought  against  that  lady ;  yet, 
since  it  served  his  ambitious  purpose,  he  did  not  now 
hesitate  to  obtain  the  appointment  of  this  amorous  rogue 
and  use  him  for  his  infamous  purposes.  The  story  need 
not  here  be  related  of  how  Clodius  had  disguised  himself 
as  a  woman,  and  had  thus  obtained  admission  to  certain 
secret  female  rites  at  which  Pompeia  was  officiating; 
how  he  had  been  discovered ;  how  he  had  only  escaped 
the  death  penalty  for  his  sacrilege  owing  to  the  fact 
that  the  judges  were  afraid  to  condemn  him  since  he 
was  a  favourite  with  the  mob,  and  afraid  to  acquit  him 
for  fear  of  offending  the  nobility,  and  had  therefore 
written  their  verdicts  so  illegibly  that  nobody  could 
read  them ;  and  how  Pompeia  had  been  divorced  by 
her  husband,  who  had  then  made  the  famous  remark 
that  "  Caesar's  wife  must  be  above  suspicion " ;  but  it 
will  be  apparent  that  Plutarch  is  justified  in  regarding 
the  man's  appointment  to  the  tribuneship  as  one  of  the 
most  disgraceful  episodes  in  the  Dictator's  career. 


90       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Caesar's  first  wife  was  named  Cossutia,  and  was  a 
wealthy  heiress  whom  he  had  married  for  her  money's 
sake.  Having,  however,  fallen  in  love  with  Cornelia, 
the  daughter  of  Cinna,  he  divorced  Cossutia,  and  wedded 
the  woman  of  his  heart,  pluckily  refusing  to  part  with 
her  when  ordered  to  do  so  for  political  reasons  by  the 
terrible  Sulla.  Cornelia  died  in  B.C.  68,  and  in  the 
following  year  he  married  Pompeia,  of  whom  we  have 
just  heard,  in  order  to  strengthen  his  alliance  with 
Pompey,  to  whom  she  was  related. 

Caesar's  marriage  to  Calpurnia,  after  the  dismissal  of 
Pompeia,  again  showed  his  indifference  to  the  moral 
aspect  of  political  life.  Calpurnia  was  the  daughter  of 
Calpurnius  Piso,  the  pupil  and  disciple  of  Philodemus 
the  Epicurean,  a  man  whose  verses  in  the  Greek 
Anthology,  and  whose  habits  of  life,  were  as  vicious 
and  poisonous  as  any  in  that  licentious  age.  Caesar  at 
once  obtained  the  consulship  for  his  disreputable  father- 
in  -  law,  thereby  causing  Cato  to  protest  that  it  was 
intolerable  that  the  government  should  be  prostituted 
by  such  marriages,  and  that  persons  should  advance 
one  another  to  the  highest  offices  in  the  land  by  means 
of  women.  Caesar  went  so  far  as  to  propose,  shortly 
after  this,  that  he  should  divorce  Calpurnia  and  marry 
Pompey's  daughter,  who  would  have  to  be  divorced  from 
her  husband,  Faustus  Sulla,  for  the  purpose  ;  and  that 
Pompey  should  marry  Octavia,  Caesar's  niece,  although 
she  was  at  that  time  married  to  C.  Marcellus,  and  also 
would  have  to  be  divorced. 

There  was  a  startling  nonchalance  in  Caesar's  be- 
haviour, a  studied  callousness,  which  was  not  less 
apparent  to  his  contemporaries  than  to  us.  His  won- 
derful ability  to  squander  other  people's  money,  his 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  91 


total  disregard  of  principle,  his  undisguised  satisfaction 
in  political  and  domestic  intrigue,  revealed  an  uncon- 
cern which  must  inspire  for  all  time  the  admiration 
of  the  criminal  classes,  and  which,  in  certain  instances, 
must  appeal  very  forcibly  to  the  imagination  of  all 
high-spirited  persons.  Who  can  resist  the  charm  of 
the  story  of  his  behaviour  to  the  pirates  of  Phar- 
macusa  ?  For  thirty -eight  days  he  was  held  prisoner 
at  that  place  by  a  band  of  most  ferocious  and  blood- 
thirsty Cilicians,  and  during  that  time  he  treated  his 
captors  with  a  degree  of  reckless  insouciance  unmatched 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  When  they  asked  him 
for  a  ransom  of  twenty  talents  (£5000)  he  laughed 
in  their  faces,  and  said  that  he  was  worth  at  least 
fifty  (£12,500),  which  sum  he  ultimately  paid  over  to 
them.  He  insisted  upon  joining  in  their  games,  jeered 
at  them  for  their  barbarous  habits,  and  ordered  them 
about  as  though  they  were  his  slaves.  When  he  wished 
to  sleep  he  demanded  that  they  should  keep  absolute 
silence  as  they  sat  over  their  camp-fires ;  or,  when  the 
mood  pleased  him,  he  took  part  in  their  sing-songs, 
read  them  his  atrocious  Latin  verses  (for  he  was  ever 
a  poor  poet),  and  abused  them  soundly  if  they  did  not 
applaud.  A  hundred  times  a  day  he  told  them  that 
he  would  have  them  all  hanged  as  soon  as  he  was  free, 
a  pleasantry  at  which  the  pirates  laughed  heartily, 
thinking  it  a  merry  jest;  but  no  sooner  was  he  released 
than  he  raised  a  small  force,  attacked  his  former  captors, 
and,  taking  most  of  them  prisoners,  had  them  all  crucified. 
Crucifixion  is  a  form  of  death  by  torture,  the  prolonged 
and  frightful  agony  of  which  is  not  fully  appreciated  at 
the  present  day,  owing  to  a  complacent  familiarity  with 
the  most  notorious  case  of  its  application  ;  but  Csesar 


92       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


being,  on  occasion,  with  all  his  indifference,  a  kind- 
hearted  man,  decided  at  the  last  moment  mercifully  to 
put  an  end  to  the  agonies  of  his  disillusioned  victims, 
and  with  a  sort  of  considerate  nonchalance  he  therefore 
quietly  cut  their  throats. 

He  was  not  by  any  means  consistently  a  cruel  man, 
and  his  kindness  and  magnanimity  were  often  demon- 
strated. He  shed  tears,  it  will  be  remembered,  upon 
seeing  the  signet-ring  of  his  murdered  enemy,  Pompey ; 
and  in  Rome  he  ordered  that  unfortunate  soldier's 
statues  to  be  replaced  upon  the  pedestals  from  which 
they  had  been  thrown.  In  warfare,  however,  he  was 
often  ruthless,  and  had  recourse  to  wholesale  massacres 
which  could  hardly  be  regarded  as  necessary  measures. 
At  Uxellodunum  and  elsewhere  he  caused  thousands  of 
prisoners  to  be  maimed  by  the  hacking  off  of  their  right 
hands ;  and  his  slaughter  of  the  members  of  the  Senate 
of  the  Veneti  seems  to  have  been  an  unnecessary  piece 
of  brutality.  His  behaviour  in  regard  to  the  Usipetes 
and  Tencteri  will  always  remain  the  chief  stain  upon 
his  military  reputation.  After  concluding  peace  with 
these  unfortunate  peoples,  he  attacked  them  when  they 
were  disarmed,  and  killed  430,000  of  them — men,  women, 
and  children.  For  this  barbarity  Cato  proposed  that  he 
should  be  put  in  chains  and  delivered  over  to  the  remnant 
of  the  massacred  tribes,  that  they  might  wreak  their 
vengeance  upon  him. 

During  his  ten  years'  campaigning  in  Gaul  he  took  800 
towns  by  storm,  subdued  300  states,  killed  a  million  men, 
and  sent  another  million  into  slavery.^  His  cold-blooded 
execution  of  the  brave  Vercingetorix,  after  six  years  of 
captivity,  seems  more  cruel  to  us,  perhaps,  than  it  did  to 

'  So  the  early  writers  state. 


/ 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  93 

his  contemporaries ;  and  it  may  be  said  in  his  favour  that 
he  treated  the  terrified  remnant  of  the  conquered  peoples 
with  justice  and  moderation.  In  spite  of  a  kindly  and 
even  affable  manner,  his  wit  was  caustic  and  his  words 
often  terribly  biting.  When  a  certain  young  man  named 
Metellus,  at  that  time  tribune,  had  persistently  ques- 
tioned whether  Caesar  had  a  right  to  appropriate  treasury 
funds  in  the  prosecution  of  his  wars,  Caesar  threatened  to 
put  him  to  death  if  any  more  was  heard  of  his  dissent. 
"And  this  you  know,  young  man,"  said  he,  "is  more 
disagreeable  for  me  to  say  than  to  do."  He  associated 
freely  with  all  manner  of  persons,  and  although  so 
obviously  an  aristocrat,  he  was  noted  for  his  friendliness 
and  tact  in  dealing  with  the  lower  classes.  During  his 
campaigns  he  shared  all  hardships  with  his  men,  and, 
consequently,  was  much  beloved  by  them,  in  spite  of 
their  occasional  objection  to  the  heavy  work  or  strenuous 
manoeuvres  which  he  required  them  to  undertake.  He 
was  wont  to  travel  in  time  of  war  at  the  rate  of  a  hundred 
miles  a  day ;  and  when  a  river  or  stream  obstructed  his 
progress  he  did  not  hesitate  to  dive  straightway  into  the 
water  and  swim  to  the  opposite  shore.  On  the  march  he 
himself  usually  slept  in  his  litter,  or  curled  up  on  the 
floor  of  his  chariot,  and  his  food  was  of  the  coarsest 
description.  At  no  time,  indeed,  was  he  a  gourmet ;  and 
it  is  related  how  once  he  ate  without  a  murmur  some 
asparagus  which  had  been  treated  with  something  very 
much  like  an  ointment  in  mistake  for  sauce.  In  later 
life  he  drank  no  wine  of  any  kind,  an  abstemiousness 
which  was  probably  forced  upon  him  by  ill-health  ;  and 
he  who,  in  his  early  years,  had  been  notorious  for  his 
dissipations  and  luxurious  living,  was,  at  the  time  with 
which  we  are  now  dealing,  famous  for  his  abstinence. 


94      LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


When  Caesar  arrived  in  Alexandria  he  was  come  direct 
from  his  great  victory  over  Pompey  at  Pharsalia,  and  was 
now  absolute  master  of  the  Roman  world.  His  brilliant 
campaigns  in  Gaul  had  raised  him  to  the  highest  position 
in  the  Republic,  and  now  that  Pompey  was  dead  he  was 
without  any  appreciable  rival.  He  carried  himself  with 
careful  dignity,  and  presumed — quite  correctly — that  all 
eyes  were  turned  upon  him.  He  had,  as  Mommsen  says, 
"a  pleasing  consciousness  of  his  own  manly  beauty"; 
and  the  thought  of  his  many  brilliant  victories  and 
successful  surmounting  of  all  obstacles  gave  him 
the  liveliest  satisfaction.  No  longer  was  his  elegant 
frame  shaken  with  sobs  at  the  envious  thought  of  the 
exploits  of  Alexander  the  Great ;  but,  since  his  insatiable 
ambition  still  urged  him  to  make  use  of  his  opportunities, 
he  was  for  the  moment  content  to  indulge  his  passion 
for  conquest  by  attempting  to  win  the  affections  of  the 
charming,  omnipotent,  and  fabulously  wealthy  Queen 
of  Egypt. 


95 


CHAPTER  VI. 

CLEOPATRA  AND  CESAR  IN  THE  BESIEGED  PALACE 
AT  ALEXANDRIA. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Caesar's  all-night  inter- 
view with  Cleopatra  put  an  entirely  new  complexion 
upon  his  conception  of  the  situation.  Until  the  Queen's 
dramatic  entry  into  the  Palace,  his  main  object  in  re- 
maining for  a  short  time  at  Alexandria,  after  he  had  been 
shown  the  severed  head  of  the  murdered  Pompey,  had 
been  to  assert  his  authority  in  that  city  of  unrivalled 
commercial  opulence,  and  at  the  same  time  to  make  full 
use  of  a  favourable  opportunity  to  rest  his  weary  mind 
and  body  in  the  luxury  of  its  royal  residence  and  the 
perfection  of  its  sun-bathed  summer  days,  while  Rome 
should  be  quieted  down  and  made  ready  for  his  coming. 
But  now  a  new  factor  had  introduced  itself.  He  had 
found  that  the  Queen  of  this  desirable  and  important 
country  was  a  young  woman  after  his  own  heart :  a  dare- 
devil girl,  whose  manners  and  beauty  had  fired  his  imagi- 
nation, and  whose  apparent  admiration  for  him  had  set 
him  thinking  of  the  uses  to  which  he  might  put  the 
devotion  he  confidently  expected  to  arouse.  She  seems 
to  have  laid  her  case  before  him  with  frankness  and 
sincerity.     She  had  shown  him  how  her  brother  had 


96       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


driven  her  from  the  throne,  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
will  of  her  father,  who  had  so  earnestly  desired  the  two 
of  them  to  reign  jointly  and  in  harmony.  And  while  she 
had  talked  to  him  through  the  long  hours  of  the  night  he 
had  found  himself  most  willingly  carried  away  by  the 
desire  to  obtain  her  love,  both  for  the  pleasure  which  it 
might  be  expected  to  afford  him  and  for  the  political 
advantage  which  would  accrue  from  such  an  inter- 
course. Here  was  a  simple  means  of  bringing  Egypt 
under  his  control  —  Egypt  which  was  the  granary  of 
the  world,  the  most  important  commercial  market  of 
the  Mediterranean,  the  most  powerful  factor  in  eastern 
politics,  and  the  gateway  of  the  unconquered  kingdoms 
of  the  Orient.  He  had  made  himself  lord  of  the  West ; 
Greece  and  Asia  Minor  were,  since  the  late  war,  at  his 
feet ;  and  now  Alexandria,  so  long  the  support  of 
Pompey's  faction,  should  come  to  him  with  the  de- 
votion of  its  Queen.  I  do  not  hold  with  those  who 
suppose  him  to  have  been  led  like  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter 
by  the  wiles  of  Cleopatra,  and  to  have  succumbed  to  her 
charms  in  the  manner  of  one  whose  passions  have  con- 
fused his  brain,  causing  him  to  forget  all  things  save 
only  his  desire.  In  consideration  of  the  fact  that  the 
young  Queen  was  at  that  time,  so  far  as  we  know,  a 
woman  of  blameless  character,  and  that  he,  on  the  con- 
trary, was  a  man  of  the  very  worst  possible  reputation  in 
regard  to  the  opposite  sex,  it  seems,  to  say  the  least, 
unfair  that  the  burden  of  the  blame  for  the  subsequent 
events  should  have  been  assigned  for  all  these  centuries 
to  Cleopatra. 

Before  the  end  of  that  eventful  night  Caesar  seems  to 
have  determined  to  excite  the  passionate  love  of  that  wild 
and  irresponsible  girl,  whose  personality  and  political  im- 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  97 


portance  made  a  doubly  powerful  appeal  to  him  ;  and  ere 
the  light  of  dawn  had  entered  the  room  his  decision  to 
restore  her  to  the  throne,  and  to  place  her  brother  in  the 
far  background,  had  been  irrevocably  made.  As  the  sun 
rose  he  sent  for  King  Ptolemy,  who,  on  entering  Caesar's 
presence,  must  have  been  dismayed  to  be  confronted  with 
his  sister  whom  he  had  driven  into  exile  and  against 
whom  he  had  so  recently  been  fighting  at  Pelusium.  It 
would  appear  that  Caesar  treated  him  with  sternness, 
asking  him  how  he  had  dared  to  go  against  the  wishes 
of  his  father,  who  had  entrusted  their  fulfilment  to  the 
Roman  people,  and  demanding  that  he  should  at  once 
make  his  peace  with  Cleopatra.  At  this  the  young  man 
lost  his  temper,  and,  rushing  from  the  room,  cried  out  to 
his  friends  and  attendants  who  were  waiting  outside  that 
he  had  been  betrayed  and  that  his  cause  was  lost. 
Snatching  the  royal  diadem  from  his  head  in  his  boyish 
rage  and  chagrin,  he  dashed  it  upon  the  ground,  and,  no 
doubt,  burst  into  tears.  Thereupon  an  uproar  arose, 
and  the  numerous  Alexandrians  who  still  remained  within 
the  Roman  lines  at  once  gathering  round  their  King, 
nearly  succeeded  in  communicating  their  excitement  to 
the  royal  troops  in  the  city,  and  arousing  them  to  a 
concerted  attack  upon  the  Palace  by  land  and  sea. 
Caesar,  however,  hurried  out  and  addressed  the  crowd, 
promising  to  arrange  matters  to  their  satisfaction;  and 
thereupon  he  called  a  meeting  at  which  Ptolemy  and 
Cleopatra  were  both  induced  to  attend,  and  he  read  out 
to  them  their  father's  will  wherein  it  was  emphatically 
stated  that  they  were  to  reign  together.  He  reiterated 
his  right,  as  representative  of  the  Roman  people,  to 
adjust  the  dispute ;  and  at  last  he  appears  to  have 
effected  a  reconciliation  between  the  brother  and  sister. 

G 


98       LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


The  unfortunate  Ptolemy  must  have  reaHsed  that  from 
that  moment  his  ambitions  and  hopes  were  become  dust 
and  ashes,  for  he  would  now  always  remain  under  the 
scrutiny  of  his  elder  sister;  and  the  liberty  of  action  for 
which  he  and  his  ministers  had  plotted  and  schemed  was 
for  ever  gone.  According  to  Dion  Cassius,  he  could 
already  see  plainly  that  there  was  an  understanding 
between  Caesar  and  his  sister ;  and  Cleopatra's  manner 
doubtless  betrayed  to  him  her  elation.  She  must  have 
been  intensely  excited.  A  few  hours  previously  she  had 
been  an  exile,  creeping  back  to  her  own  city  in  imminent 
danger  of  her  life ;  now,  not  only  was  she  Queen  of  Eg}'pt 
once  more,  but  she  had  won  the  esteem  and,  so  it 
seemed,  the  heart  also  of  the  Autocrat  of  the  world, 
whose  word  was  absolute  law  to  the  nations.  One  may 
almost  picture  her  making  faces  at  her  brother  as  they 
sat  opposite  one  another  in  Caesar's  improvised  court  of 
justice,  and  the  unhappy  boy's  distress  must  have  been 
acute. 

Caesar's  dominant  idea  now  was  to  control  the  politics 
of  Egypt  by  means  of  a  skilled  play  upon  the  heart  of 
Cleopatra.  He  did  not  much  care  what  happened  to 
King  Ptolemy  or  to  his  minister  Potheinos,  for  they 
had  forfeited  their  right  to  consideration  by  their  attempt 
to  set  aside  the  wishes  of  Auletes,  and  by  their  disgusting 
behaviour  to  Pompey,  who,  though  Caesar's  enemy,  had 
yet  been  his  mighty  fellow-countryman ;  but  it  was  his 
wish  as  soon  as  possible  to  placate  the  mob,  and  to 
endear  the  people  of  Alexandria  to  him,  so  that  in 
three  or  four  weeks'  time  he  might  leave  the  country 
in  undisturbed  quiet.  Now  the  control  of  Cyprus  was 
one  of  the  most  fervent  aspirations  of  the  city,  and  it 
seems  to  have  occurred  to  Caesar  that  the  presentation 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  99 


of  the  island  to  their  royal  house  would  be  keenly  appre- 
ciated by  them,  and  would  go  a  long  way  to  appease 
their  hostile  excitement.  When  the  Romans  annexed 
Cyprus  in  B.C.  58,  the  Alexandrians  had  risen  in  revolt 
against  Auletes  largely  because  he  had  made  no  attempt 
to  claim  the  country  for  himself.  It  had  been  more  or 
less  continuously  an  appendage  of  the  Egyptian  crown, 
and  its  possession  was  still  the  people's  dearest  wish. 
Now,  therefore,  according  to  Dion,  Caesar  made  a  present 
of  the  island  to  Egypt  in  the  names  of  the  two  younger 
members  of  the  royal  house.  Prince  Ptolemy  and  Princess 
Arsinoe ;  and  though  we  have  no  records  definitely  to 
show  that  they  ever  assumed  control  of  their  new  pos- 
session, or  that  it  ceased,  at  any  rate  for  a  year  or  two, 
to  be  regarded  as  a  part  of  the  Roman  province  of 
Cilicia,  it  is  certain  that  a  few  years  later,  in  B.C.  42,  it 
had  become  an  Egyptian  dominion  and  was  administered 
by  a  viceroy  of  that  country.^ 

Having  thus  relieved  the  situation,  Caesar  turned  his 
attention  to  other  matters.  While  Auletes  was  in  Rome, 
in  B.C.  59,  he  had  incurred  enormous  debts  in  his  efforts 
to  buy  the  support  of  the  Roman  Senate  in  re-establishing 
himself  upon  the  Ptolemaic  throne,  and  in  this  fact 
Caesar  now  saw  a  means  both  of  showing  his  benevolence 
towards  the  Egyptians,  and  of  making  them  pay  for  the 
upkeep  of  his  small  fleet  and  army  at  Alexandria.  His 
claim  on  behalf  of  the  creditors  of  Auletes  he  fixed  at 
the  very  moderate  sum  of  ten  million  denarii  (;^400,ooo), 
although  it  must  have  been  realised  by  all  that  the 
original  debts  amounted  to  a  much  higher  figure  than 
this.  At  the  same  time  he  made  no  attempt  to  demand 
a  war  contribution  from  the  Egyptians,  although  their 

1  Page  235. 


100     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


original  advocacy  of  the  cause  of  Pompey  would  have 
justified  him  in  doing  so.^  In  this  manner,  and  by  the 
gift  of  Cyprus,  he  made  a  bid  for  the  goodwill  of  the 
Alexandrians;  but,  unfortunately,  his  efforts  in  this 
direction  were  entirely  frustrated  by  the  intrigues  of 
Potheinos.  There  probably  need  not  have  been  any 
difficulty  in  the  raising  of  ^^400,000 ;  but  Potheinos 
chose  to  order  the  King's  golden  dishes  and  the  rich 
vessels  in  the  temples  to  be  melted  down  and  converted 
into  money.  He  furnished  the  King's  own  table  with 
wooden  or  earthenware  plates  and  bowls,  and  caused  the 
fact  to  be  made  known  to  the  townspeople,  in  order 
that  they  should  be  shown  the  straits  to  which  Caesar's 
cupidity  had  reduced  them.  Meanwhile,  he  supplied 
the  Roman  soldiers  with  a  very  poor  quality  of  corn, 
and  told  them,  in  reply  to  their  complaints,  that  they 
ought  to  be  grateful  that  they  received  any  at  all,  since 
they  had  no  right  to  it.  Nor  did  he  hesitate  to  tell 
Caesar  that  he  ought  not  to  waste  his  time  in  Alexandria, 
or  concern  himself  with  the  insignificant  affairs  of  Egypt, 
when  urgent  business  should  be  calling  him  back  to 
Rome.  His  manner  towards  the  Dictator  was  con- 
sistently rude  and  hostile,  and  there  seems  little  doubt 
that  he  was  plotting  against  him  and  was  keeping  in 
touch  with  Achillas. 

Hostilities  of  a  more  or  less  sporadic  nature  soon 
broke  out,  and  it  was  not  long  before  Caesar  made  his 
first  hit  at  the  enemy.  Hearing  that  they  were  attempt- 
ing to  man  their  imprisoned  ships,  which  lay  still  in  the 

1  It  is  usually  stated  that  Caesar  remained  in  Egj-pt  chiefly  because  he  was 
in  need  of  money,  as  is  suggested  by  Dion,  xlii.  9  and  34 ;  Oros,  vi.  15, 
29,  and  Plutarch,  48.  But  the  small  sum  which  he  took  from  the  Egj-ptians 
is  against  this  theory. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  loi 


western  portion  of  the  Great  Harbour,  and  knowing 
that  he  was  not  strong  enough  either  to  hold  or  to 
utilise  more  than  a  few  of  them,  he  sent  out  a  little 
force  which  succeeded  in  seting  fire  to,  and  destroying, 
the  whole  fleet,  consisting  of  the  fifty  men-o'-war  which, 
during  the  late  hostilities,  had  been  lent  to  Pompey, 
twenty-two  guardships,  and  thirty-eight  other  craft,  thus 
leaving  in  their  possession  only  those  vessels  which  lay 
in  the  Harbour  of  the  Happy  Return,  beyond  the 
Heptastadium.  In  this  conflagration  some  of  the 
buildings  on  the  quay  near  the  harbour  appear  to  have 
been  burnt,  and  it  would  seem  that  some  portion  of 
the  famous  Alexandrian  library  was  destroyed ;  but 
the  silence  of  contemporary  writers  upon  this  literary 
catastrophe  indicates  that  the  loss  was  not  great,  and,  to 
my  mind,  puts  out  of  account  the  statement  of  later 
authors  that  the  burning  of  the  entire  library  occurred 
on  that  occasion.  Caesar's  next  move  was  to  seize  the 
Pharos  Lighthouse  and  the  eastern  end  of  the  island 
upon  which  it  was  built,  thus  securing  the  entrance  to 
the  Great  Harbour,  and  making  the  passage  of  his  ships 
to  the  open  sea  a  manoeuvre  which  could  be  employed 
at  any  moment.  At  the  same  time  he  threw  up  the 
strongest  fortifications  at  all  the  vulnerable  points  in  his 
land  defences,  and  thereby  rendered  himself  absolutely 
secure  from  direct  assault. 

He  was  not  much  troubled  by  the  situation.  It  is 
said  that  he  was  obliged  more  than  once  to  keep  awake 
all  night  in  order  to  protect  himself  against  assassina- 
tion ;  but  such  a  contingency  did  not  interfere  to  any 
great  extent  with  his  enjoyments  of  the  life  in  the 
Alexandrian  Palace.  From  early  youth  he  must  have 
been  accustomed  to  the  thought  of  the  assassin's  knife. 


102     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


His  many  love-affairs  had  made  imminent  each  day 
the  possibility  of  sudden  death,  and  his  political  and 
administrative  career  also  laid  him  open  at  all  times  to 
a  murderous  attack.  The  jealousy  of  the  husbands 
whose  wives  he  had  stolen,  the  vengeance  of  the  survivors 
of  the  massacres  instigated  by  him,  the  resentment  of 
the  politicians  whose  ambitions  he  had  thwarted,  and 
the  hatred  of  innumerable  persons  whom,  in  one  way  or 
another,  he  had  offended,  placed  his  life  in  continuous 
jeopardy.  The  machinations  of  Potheinos,  therefore, 
left  him  undismayed,  and  he  was  able  to  prosecute  what 
was,  in  plain  language,  the  seduction  of  the  Queen  of 
Egypt  with  an  undistracted  mind. 

Cleopatra  appears  to  have  been  as  strongly  attracted 
to  Caesar  as  he  was  to  her ;  and  although  at  the  outset 
each  realised  the  advantage  of  winning  the  other's  heart, 
and  regulated  their  actions  accordingly,  there  seems  little 
doubt  that,  after  a  day  or  two  of  close  companionship, 
a  romantic  attachment  of  a  very  genuine  nature  had 
been  formed  between  them.  In  the  case  of  Cleopatra, 
no  doubt,  her  love  held  all  the  sweetness  of  the  first 
serious  affair  of  her  life,  and  on  the  part  of  Caesar  there 
is  apparent  the  passionate  delight  of  a  man  past  his 
prime  in  the  vivacity  and  charm  of  a  beautiful  young 
girl.  Though  elderly,  Cassar  was  what  a  romanticist 
would  call  an  ideal  lover.  His  keen,  handsome  face, 
his  athletic  and  graceful  figure,  the  fascination  of  his 
manners,  and  the  wonder  of  the  deeds  which  he  had 
performed,  might  be  calculated  to  win  the  heart  of  any 
woman  ;  and  to  Cleopatra  he  must  have  made  a  special 
appeal  by  reason  of  his  reputation  for  bravery  and 
reliability  on  all  occasions,  and  his  present  display  of 
sang-froid  and  light-heartedness. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  103 


Caesar  was,  at  this  time,  in  holiday  mood,  and  the 
life  he  led  at  the  Palace  was  of  the  gayest  description. 
He  had  cast  from  him  the  cares  of  state  with  an 
ease  which  came  of  frequent  practice  in  the  art  of 
throwing  off  responsibilities ;  and  when  about  October 
25th  he  received  news  from  Rome  that  he  had  been 
made  Dictator  for  the  whole  of  the  coming  year,  47, 
he  was  able  to  feel  that  there  was  no  cause  for  anxiety. 
While  the  unfortunate  young  Ptolemy  sulked  in  the 
background,  Caesar  and  Cleopatra  openly  sought  one 
another's  company  and  made  merry  together,  it  would 
seem,  for  a  large  part  of  every  day.  With  such  a  man 
as  Caesar,  the  result  of  this  intimacy  was  inevitable ; 
nor  was  it  to  be  expected  that  the  happy-go-lucky  and 
impetuous  girl  of  but  twenty  years  of  age  would  act 
with  much  caution  or  propriety  under  the  peculiar 
and  exciting  circumstances.  It  is  possible  that  she 
had  already  gone  through  the  form  of  marriage 
with  her  co  -  regnant  brother,  as  was  the  custom  of 
the  Egyptian  Court ;  but  it  is  highly  unlikely  that  this 
was  anything  more  than  the  emptiest  formality,  and 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  in  actual  fact  she 
was,  when  she  met  Caesar,  still  unwedded.  The  child 
which  in  due  course  she  presented  to  the  Dictator  was 
her  first-born ;  but  had  there  been  a  previous  marriage 
of  more  than  a  formal  nature,  it  is  at  least  probable,  in 
view  of  her  subsequent  productivity,  that  she  would 
already  have  been  in  enjoyment  of  the  privileges  of 
motherhood. 

The  gaiety  of  the  life  in  the  besieged  Palace,  and  the 
progress  of  the  romance  which  was  there  being  enacted, 
were  rudely  disturbed  by  two  consecutive  events  which 
led  at  once  to  the  outbreak  of  really  serious  hostilities. 


104     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


The  little  Princess  Arsinoe,  who,  like  all  the  women  of 
this  family,  must  have  been  endowed  with  great  spirit 
and  pluck,  suddenly  made  her  escape  from  the  Roman 
lines,  accompanied  by  her  nutritius  Ganymedes,^  and 
joined  the  Egyptian  forces  under  Achillas.  The  plot, 
organised  no  doubt  by  Ganymedes,  had  for  its  object 
the  raising  of  the  Princess  to  the  throne,  while  Cleopatra 
and  her  two  brothers  were  imprisoned  in  the  Lochias, 
and  no  sooner  had  they  reached  the  Egyptian  head- 
quarters than  they  began  freely  to  bribe  all  officers  and 
officials  of  importance  in  order  to  accomplish  their 
purpose.  Achillas,  however,  who  had  his  own  game 
to  play,  thought  it  wiser  to  remain  loyal  to  his  sovereign, 
and  to  attempt  to  rescue  him  from  Caesar's  clutches.  It 
was  not  long  before  a  quarrel  arose  between  Ganymedes 
and  Achillas,  which  ended  in  the  prompt  assassination 
of  the  latter,  whose  functions  were  at  once  assumed  by 
his  murderer,  the  war  being  thereupon  prosecuted  with 
renewed  vigour.  Previous  to  the  death  of  Achillas, 
Potheinos  had  been  in  secret  communication  with  him, 
apparently  in  regard  to  the  possibility  of  murdering 
Caesar  and  effecting  the  escape  of  King  Ptolemy  and 
himself  from  the  Palace  ere  Arsinoe  and  Ganymedes 
obtained  control  of  affairs.  Information  of  the  plot 
was  given  to  Caesar  by  his  barber,  "  a  busy,  listening 
fellow,  whose  excessive  timidity  made  him  inquisitive 
into  everything";-  and,  at  a  feast  held  to  celebrate  the 
reconciliation  between  Ptolemy  and  Cleopatra,  Potheinos 

^  In  ancient  Egypt  the  princes  and  princesses  often  had  male  "nurses,"  the 
title  being  an  exceedingly  honourable  one.  The  Egyptian  phrase  sometimes 
reads  "great  nurse  and  nourisher,"  and  M.  Lefebvre  tells  me  that  in  a 
Fayoum  inscription  the  tutor  of  Ptolemy  Alexander  is  called  rpo^fvs  kiU 
TiBrivbs  '  AKe^avSpov. 
Plutarch. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  105 


was  arrested  and  immediately  beheaded,  a  death  which 
the  poet  Lucan  considers  to  have  teen  very  much  too 
good  for  him,  since  it  was  that  by  which  he  had  caused 
the  great  Pompey  to  die.  So  far  as  one  can  now  tell, 
Caesar  was  entirely  justified  in  putting  this  wretched 
eunuch  out  of  the  way  of  further  worldly  mischief.  He 
belonged  to  that  class  of  court  functionary  which  is  met 
with  throughout  the  history  of  the  Orient,  and  which 
invariably  calls  forth  the  denunciation  of  the  more  moral 
West ;  but  it  is  to  be  remembered  in  his  favour  that,  so 
far  as  we  know,  he  schemed  as  eagerly  for  the  fortunes 
of  his  young  sovereign  Ptolemy  as  he  did  for  his 
own  advancement,  and  his  treacherous  manoeuvres  were 
directed  against  the  menacing  intrusion  of  a  power  which 
was  relentlessly  crushing  the  life  out  of  the  royal  houses 
of  the  accessible  world.  His  crime  against  fallen  Pompey 
was  no  more  dastardly  than  were  many  other  of  the 
recorded  acts  of  the  Court  he  served ;  and  the  fact 
that  he,  like  his  two  fellow-conspirators,  Achillas  and 
Theodotos,  paid  in  blood  and  tears  for  the  riches  of  the 
moment,  goes  far  to  exonerate  him,  at  this  remote  date, 
from  further  execration. 

The  first  act  of  the  war  which  caused  Csesar  any 
misgivings  was  the  pollution  of  his  water  supply  by  the 
enemy,  and  the  consequent  nervousness  of  his  men. 
The  Royal  Area  obtained  its  drinking  water  through 
subterranean  channels  communicating  with  the  lake  at 
the  back  of  the  city ;  and  no  sooner  had  Caesar  realised 
that  these  channels  might  be  tampered  with  than  he 
attempted  to  cut  his  way  southwards,  probably  along  the 
broad  street  ^  which  led  to  the  Gate  of  the  Sun  and  to 
the  Lake  Harbour.     Here,  however,  he   met  with  a 

^  See  p.  31. 


io6     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


stubborn  resistance,  and  the  loss  of  life  might  have  been 
very  great  had  he  persisted  in  his  endeavour.  Fortun- 
ately, however,  the  sinking  of  trial  shafts  within  the 
besieged  territory  led  to  the  discovery  of  an  abundance 
of  good  water,  the  existence  of  which  had  not  been 
suspected ;  and  thus  he  was  saved  from  the  ignominy 
of  being  ousted  from  the  city  which  he  had  entered  in 
such  solemn  pomp,  and  of  being  forced  to  retire  across 
the  Mediterranean,  his  self-imposed  task  left  uncom- 
pleted, and  his  ambitions  for  the  future  of  Cleopatra 
unfulfilled. 

Not  long  after  this  the  welcome  news  was  brought  to 
him  that  the  Thirty-seventh  Legion  had  crossed  from  Asia 
Minor  with  food  supplies,  arms,  and  siege-instruments, 
and  was  anchored  off  the  Egyptian  coast,  being  for  the 
moment  unable  to  reach  him  owing  to  contrary  winds. 
Caesar  at  once  sailed  out  to  meet  them,  with  his  entire 
fleet,  the  ships  being  manned  only  by  their  Rhodian 
crews,  all  the  troops  having  been  left  to  hold  the  land 
defences.  Effecting  a  junction  with  these  reinforcements, 
he  returned  to  the  harbour,  easily  defeated  the  Egyptian 
vessels  which  had  collected  to  the  north  of  the  Island  of 
Pharos,  and  sailed  triumphantly  back  to  his  moorings 
below  the  Palace. 

So  confident  now  was  he  in  his  strength  that  he  next 
sailed  round  the  island,  and  attacked  the  Egyptian  fleet 
in  its  own  harbour  beyond  the  Heptastadium,  inflicting 
heavy  losses  upon  them.  He  then  landed  on  the  western 
end  of  Pharos,  which  was  still  held  by  the  enemy,  carried 
the  forts  by  storm,  and  effected  a  junction  with  his  own 
men  who  were  stationed  around  the  lighthouse  at  the 
eastern  end.  His  plan  was  to  advance  across  the  Hepta- 
stadium, and  thus,  by  holding  both  the  island  and  the 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  107 


mole,  to  obtain  possession  of  the  western  Harbour  of  the 
Happy  Return  and  ultimately  to  strike  a  wedge  into  the 
city  upon  that  side.  But  here  he  suffered  a  dangerous 
reverse.  While  he  was  leading  in  person  the  attack  upon 
the  south  or  city  end  of  the  Heptastadium,  and  his  men 
were  crowding  on  to  it  from  the  island  and  from  the 
vessels  in  the  Great  Harbour,  the  Egyptians  made  a 
spirited  attack  upon  its  northern  end,  thus  hemming  the 
Romans  in  upon  the  narrow  causeway,  to  the  consterna- 
tion of  those  who  watched  the  battle  from  the  Lochias 
Promontory.  Fortunately  vessels  were  at  hand  to  take 
off  the  survivors  of  this  sanguinary  engagement,  as  the 
enemy  drove  them  back  from  either  end  of  the  causeway  ; 
and  presently  they  had  all  scrambled  aboard  and  were 
rowing  at  full  speed  across  the  Great  Harbour.  Such 
numbers,  however,  jumped  on  to  the  deck  of  the  vessel 
into  which  Cassar  had  entered  that  it  capsized,  and  we 
are  then  presented  with  the  dramatic  picture  of  the  ruler 
of  the  world  swimming  for  his  life  through  the  quiet 
waters  of  the  harbour,  holding  aloft  in  one  hand  a  bundle 
of  important  papers  which  he  happened  to  be  carrying 
at  the  moment  of  the  catastrophe,  dragging  his  scarlet 
military  cloak  along  by  his  teeth,  and  at  the  same  time 
constantly  ducking  his  rather  bald  head  under  the  water 
to  avoid  the  missiles  which  were  hurled  at  him  by  the 
victorious  Egyptians,  who  must  have  been  capering  about 
upon  the  recaptured  mole,  all  talking  and  shouting  at 
once.  He  was,  however,  soon  picked  up  by  one  of  his 
ships ;  and  thus  he  returned  to  the  Palace,  very  cold  and 
dripping  wet,  and  having  in  the  end  lost  the  cloak  which 
was  the  cherished  mark  of  his  rank.  Four  hundred 
legionaries  and  a  number  of  seamen  perished  in  this 
engagement,  most  of  them  being  drowned ;  and  now, 


io8     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


perhaps  for  the  first  time,  it  began  to  appear  to  Caesar 
that  the  warfare  which  he  was  waging  was  not  the 
amusing  game  he  had  thought  it.  For  at  least  four 
months  he  had  entertained  himself  in  the  Palace,  spend- 
ing his  days  in  pottering  around  his  perfectly  secure 
defences  and  his  nights  in  enjoying  the  company  of 
Cleopatra.  Up  till  now  he  must  have  been  in  constant 
receipt  of  news  from  Rome,  where  his  affairs  were  being 
managed  by  Antony,  his  boisterous  but  fairly  reliable 
lieutenant,  and  it  is  evident  that  nothing  had  occurred 
there  to  necessitate  his  return.  Far  from  being  hemmed 
in  within  the  Palace  and  obliged  to  fight  for  his  life,  as  is 
generally  supposed  to  have  been  the  case,  it  seems  to  me 
that  his  position  at  all  times  was  as  open  as  it  was  secure. 
He  could  have  travelled  across  the  Mediterranean  at  any 
moment ;  and,  had  he  thought  it  desirable,  he  could  have 
sailed  over  to  Italy  for  a  few  weeks  and  returned  to 
Alexandria  without  any  great  risk.  His  fleet  had  shown 
itself  quite  capable  of  defending  him  from  danger  upon 
the  high  seas,  as,  for  example,  when  he  had  sailed  out 
to  meet  the  Thirty-seventh  Legion;^  and,  as  on  that 
occasion,  his  troops  could  have  been  left  in  security  in 
their  fortified  position.  Supplies  from  Syria  were  plenti- 
ful, and  the  Rhodian  sailors,  after  escorting  him.  as  far  as 
Cyprus,  could  have  returned  to  their  duties  at  Alexandria 
in  order  to  ensure  the  safe  and  continuous  arrival  of  these 
stores  and  provisions. 

It  is  thus  very  apparent  that  he  had  no  wish  to 
abandon  the  enjoyments  of  his  winter  in  the  Egyptian 
capital,  where  he  had  become  thoroughly  absorbed  both 
in  the  little  Queen  of  that  country  and  in  the  problems 

*  Note  also  (p.  112)  Cassar's  departure  with  his  army  from  the  besi^ed 
Palace. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  109 


which  were  represented  to  him  by  her.  He  was  an 
elderly  man,  and  the  weight  of  his  years  caused  him  to 
feel  a  temporary  distaste  for  the  restless  anxieties  which 
awaited  him  in  Rome.  His  ambitions  in  the  Occident 
had  been  attained ;  and  now,  finding  himself  engaged  in 
what,  I  would  suggest,  was  an  easily  managed  and  not 
at  all  dangerous  war,  he  was  determined  to  carry  the 
struggle  through  to  its  inevitable  end,  and  to  find  in  this 
quite  interesting  and  occasionally  exciting  task  an  excuse 
for  remaining  by  the  side  of  the  woman  who,  for  the  time 
being,  absorbed  the  attention  of  his  wayward  affections. 
Already  he  was  beginning  to  realise  that  the  subjection 
of  Egypt  to  his  will  was  a  matter  of  very  great  political 
importance,  as  will  be  explained  hereafter ;  and  he  felt 
the  keenest  objection  to  abandoning  the  Queen  to  her 
own  devices,  both  on  this  account  and  by  reason  of  the 
hold  which  she  had  obtained  upon  his  heart.  In  after 
years  he  did  not  look  back  upon  the  fighting  with  an 
interest  sufficient  to  induce  him  to  record  its  history,  as 
he  had  done  that  of  other  campaigns,  but  he  caused  an 
official  account  to  be  written  by  one  of  his  comrades ; 
and  this  author  has  been  at  pains  to  show  that  the 
struggle  was  severe  in  character.  Such  an  interpretation 
of  the  war,  however,  though  now  unanimously  accepted, 
is  to  be  received  with  caution,  and  need  not  be  taken 
more  seriously  than  the  statement  that,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, Caesar's  prolonged  stay  at  Alexandria  was  due  to 
the  Etesian  winds  which  made  it  difficult  for  his  ships  to 
leave  the  harbour.  These  annual  winds  from  the  north 
might  have  delayed  his  return  for  a  week  or  two ;  but  it 
is  obvious  that  he  had  no  desire  to  set  sail ;  and  the 
author  of  De  Bello  Alexandrino  was  doubtless  permitted 
to   cover   Caesar's   apparent  negligence    of  important 


no     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Roman  affairs  by  thus  attributing  his  lengthy  absence  to 
the  strength  of  the  enemy  and  to  the  inclemency  of  the 
Fates. 

Now,  however,  after  the  ignominious  defeat  upon  the 
Heptastadium,  Caesar  appears  to  have  become  fully 
determined  to  punish  the  Alexandrians  and  to  prosecute 
the  campaign  with  more  energy.  He  seems  soon  to 
have  received  news  that  a  large  army  was  marching 
across  the  desert  from  Syria  to  his  relief,  under  the  joint 
leadership  of  Mithridates  of  Pergamum,  a  natural  son  of 
Mithridates  the  Great,  the  Jewish  Antipater,  father  of 
Herod,  and  lamblichus,  son  of  Sampsiceramus,  a  famous 
Arab  chieftain  from  Hemesa.  With  the  advent  of  these 
forces  he  knew  that  he  would  be  able  to  crush  all 
resistance  and  to  impose  his  will  upon  Egypt ;  and  he 
now,  therefore,  took  a  step  which  clearly  shows  his 
determination  to  handle  affairs  with  sternness  and  ruth- 
lessness,  in  such  a  manner  that  Cleopatra  should  speedily 
become  sole  ruler  of  the  country,  and  thus  should  be  in 
a  position  to  lay  all  the  might  of  her  kingdom  in  his 
hands. 

The  Princess  Arsinoe  had  failed  to  make  herself  Queen 
of  Egypt  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  Ganymedes,  and  the 
royal  army  was  still  endeavouring  to  rescue  King  Ptolemy 
and  to  fight  under  his  banner.  Caesar,  therefore,  deter- 
mined to  hand  the  young  man  over  to  them,  knowing,  as 
the  historian  of  the  war  admits,  that  there  was  little 
probability  of  such  an  action  leading  to  a  cessation  of 
hostilities.  His  avowed  object  in  taking  this  step  was  to 
give  Ptolemy  the  opportunity  of  arranging  terms  of  peace 
for  him ;  but  he  did  not  hesitate  to  record  officially  his 
opinion  that,  in  the  event  of  a  continuation  of  the  war,  it 
would  be  far  more  honourable  for  him  to  be  fighting 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  iii 


against  a  king  than  against  "  a  crowd  of  sweepings  of  the 
earth  and  renegades."  The  truth  of  the  matter,  how- 
ever, seems  to  me  to  be  that  Caesar  wished  to  rid  himself 
of  the  boy,  who  stood  in  the  way  of  the  accomplishment 
of  his  schemes  in  regard  to  the  sole  sovereignty  of  Cleo- 
patra ;  and  by  handing  him  over  to  the  enemy  at  the 
moment  when  the  news  of  the  arrival  of  the  army  from 
Syria  made  the  Egyptian  downfall  absolutely  certain,  he 
insured  the  young  man's  inevitable  death  or  degradation. 
The  miserable  Ptolemy  must  have  realised  this,  for  when 
Caesar  instructed  him  to  go  over  to  his  friends  beyond 
the  Roman  lines,  he  burst  into  tears  and  begged  to  be 
allowed  to  remain  in  the  Palace.  He  knew  quite  well 
that  the  Egyptians  had  not  a  chance  of  victory — that 
when  once  he  had  taken  up  his  residence  with  his  own 
people  their  conqueror  would  treat  him  as  an  enemy 
and  punish  him  accordingly.  Csesar,  however,  on  his 
part,  was  aware  that  if  in  the  hour  of  Roman  victory 
Ptolemy  was  still  under  his  protection,  it  would  be 
difficult  not  to  carry  out  the  terms  of  the  will  of  Auletes 
by  making  him  joint -sovereign  with  Cleopatra.  The 
King's  tears  and  paradoxical  protestations  of  devotion 
were  therefore  ignored ;  and  forthwith  he  was  pushed 
out  of  the  Palace  into  the  welcoming  arms  of  the  Alexan- 
drians, the  younger  brother,  whom  Csesar  had  designed 
for  the  safely  distant  throne  of  Cyprus,  being  left  in  the 
custody  of  the  Romans  alone  with  Cleopatra. 

The  relieving  army  from  Syria  soon  arrived  at  the 
eastern  frontier  of  Egypt,  and,  taking  Pelusium  by  storm, 
gave  battle  to  the  King's  forces  not  far  from  the  Canopic 
mouth  of  the  Nile.  The  Egyptians  were  easily  defeated, 
and  the  invaders  marched  along  the  eastern  edge  of  the 
Delta  towards  Memphis  (near  the  modern  Cairo),  just 


112     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


below  which  they  crossed  the  Nile  to  the  western  bank. 
The  young  Ptolemy  thereupon,  expecting  no  mercy  at 
Caesar's  hands,  put  himself  boldly  at  the  head  of  such 
troops  as  could  be  spared  from  the  siege  of  the  Palace 
at  Alexandria,  and  marched  across  the  Delta  to  measure 
swords  with  Mithridates  and  his  allies.  No  sooner  was 
he  gone  from  the  city  than  Caesar,  leaving  a  small 
garrison  in  the  Palace,  sailed  out  of  the  harbour  with 
as  many  men  as  he  could  crowd  into  the  ships  at  his 
disposal,  and  moved  off  eastwards  as  though  making  for 
Canopus  or  Pelusium.  Under  cover  of  darkness,  how- 
ever, he  turned  in  the  opposite  direction,  and  before 
dawn  disembarked  upon  the  deserted  shore  some  miles 
to  the  west  of  Alexandria.  He  thus  out-manoeuvred  the 
Egyptian  fleet  with  ease,  and,  incidentally,  demonstrated 
that  he  had  been  throughout  the  siege  perfectly  free  to 
come  and  go  across  the  water  as  he  chose.  Marching 
along  the  western  border  of  the  desert,  as  his  friends  had 
marched  along  the  eastern,  he  effected  a  junction  with 
them  at  the  apex  of  the  Delta,  not  far  north  of 
Memphis,  and  immediately  turned  to  attack  the  ap- 
proaching Egyptian  army.  Ptolemy,  on  learning  of 
their  advance,  fortified  himself  in  a  strong  position  at 
the  foot  of  a  tell,  or  mound,  the  Nile  being  upon  one 
flank,  a  marsh  upon  the  other,  and  a  canal  in  front 
of  him  ;  but  the  allies,  after  a  two-days'  battle,  turned 
the  position  and  gained  a  complete  victory.  The  turn- 
ing movement  had  been  entrusted  to  a  certain  Carfulenus, 
who  afterwards  fell  at  Mutina  fighting  against  Antony, 
and  this  officer  managed  to  penetrate  into  the  Egyptian 
camp.  At  his  approach  Ptolemy  appears  to  have  jumped 
into  one  of  the  boats  which  lay  moored  upon  the  Nile  ; 
but  the  weight  of  the  numbers  of  fugitives  who  followed 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  113 


his  example  sank  the  vessel,  and  the  young  king  was 
never  seen  alive  again.  It  is  said  that  his  dead  body 
was  recognised  afterwards  by  the  golden  corselet  which 
he  wore,  and  which,  no  doubt,  had  caused  by  its  weight 
his  rapid  death.  His  tragic  end,  at  the  age  of  fifteen, 
relieved  Cassar  of  the  embarrassing  necessity  either  of 
pardoning  him  and  making  him  joint -sovereign  with 
Cleopatra,  according  to  the  terms  of  his  father's  will,  or 
of  carrying  him  captive  to  Rome  and  putting  him  to 
death  in  the  customary  manner  at  the  close  of  his 
triumph.  The  boy  had  foreseen  the  fate  which  would 
be  chosen  for  him,  when  he  had  begged  with  tears  to 
be  allowed  to  remain  in  the  Palace ;  and  his  sudden  sub- 
mersion in  the  muddy  waters  of  the  Nile  must  have 
terminated  a  life  which  of  late  had  been  intolerably 
overshadowed  by  the  knowledge  that  his  existence  was 
an  obstacle  to  Caesar's  relentless  ambitions,  and  by  the 
horror  of  the  certainty  of  speedy  death. 

On  March  27th,  B.C.  47,^  Caesar,  who  had  ridden  on 
with  his  cavalry,  entered  Alexandria  in  triumph,  its  gates 
being  now  thrown  open  to  him.  The  inhabitants  dressed 
themselves  in  mourning  garments,  sending  deputations  to 
him  to  beg  for  his  mercy  and  forgiveness,  and  bringing 
out  to  him  the  statues  of  their  gods  as  a  token  of  their 
entire  submission.  Princess  Arsinoe  and  Ganymedes 
were  handed  over  to  him  as  prisoners :  and  in  pomp  he 
rode  through  the  city  to  the  Palace,  where  as  a  conquer- 
ing hero  and  saviour  he  was  received  into  the  arms  of 
Cleopatra. 

*  This  was  actually  some  time  in  January. 


H 


114 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  BIRTH  OF  C^SARION  AND  C^SAR'S  DEPARTURE 
FROM  EGYPT. 


The  death  of  Ptolemy  and  the  submission  of  Alexandria 
brought  the  war  to  a  definite  close ;  and  Caesar,  once 
more  in  comfortable  residence  at  the  Palace,  was  enabled 
at  last  to  carry  out  his  plans  for  the  regulation  of  Egypt- 
ian affairs,  with  the  execution  of  which  the  campaign  had 
so  long  interfered.  Cleopatra's  little  brother,  the  younger 
Ptolemy,  was  a  boy  of  only  eleven  years  of  age,  who  does 
not  seem  to  have  shown  such  signs  of  marked  intel- 
ligence or  strong  character  as  would  cause  him  to  be 
a  nuisance  either  to  Caesar  or  to  his  sister  ;  and  therefore 
it  was  arranged  that  he  should  be  raised  to  the  throne 
in  place  of  his  deceased  brother,  as  nominal  King  and 
consort  of  Cleopatra.  Caesar,  it  will  be  remembered,  had 
given  Cyprus  to  this  youth  and  to  his  sister  Arsinoe ;  but 
now,  since  the  latter  was  a  prisoner  in  disgrace  and  the 
former  was  not  old  enough  to  cause  trouble  in  Egypt, 
the  island  kingdom  was  not  pressed  upon  them.  To  the 
Alexandrians,  whose  campaign  against  him  had  enter- 
tained him  so  admirably  while  he  had  pursued  his  intrigue 
with  Cleopatra,  Caesar  showed  no  desire  to  be  other  than 
lenient,  and  he  preferred  to  regard  the  great  havoc 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  115 


wrought  in  certain  parts  of  their  city  as  sufficient  punish- 
ment for  their  misdeeds.  He  granted  to  the  Jews,  how- 
ever, equal  rights  with  the  Greeks,  in  consideration  of 
their  assistance  in  the  late  war,  a  step  which  must  have 
been  somewhat  irritating  to  the  majority  of  the  towns- 
folk. He  then  constituted  a  regular  Roman  Army  of 
Occupation,  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  Cleopatra  and 
her  little  brother  upon  the  throne,^  and  to  keep  order  in 
Alexandria  and  throughout  the  country.  This  army 
consisted  of  the  two  legions  which  had  been  besieged 
with  him  in  the  Palace,  together  with  a  third  which 
presently  arrived  from  Syria ;  and  to  the  command  of 
this  force  Caesar  appointed  an  able  officer  named  Rufinus, 
who  had  risen  by  his  personal  merit  from  the  ranks, 
being  originally  one  of  Caesar's  own  freedmen.  It  is 
usually  stated  that  in  handing  over  the  command  to  a 
man  of  this  standing  and  not  to  a  person  belonging  to 
the  Senate,  Caesar  was  showing  his  disdain  for  Egypt ; 
but  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  step  was  taken  deliberately 
to  retain  the  control  of  the  country  entirely  in  his  own 
hands,  Rufinus  being,  no  doubt,  absolutely  Caesar's  man. 
We  do  not  hear  what  became  of  the  Gabinian  troops 
who  had  fought  against  Caesar,  but  it  is  probable  that 
they  were  drafted  to  legions  stationed  in  other  parts  of 
the  world. 

It  was  now  April, ^  and  Caesar  had  been  in  Egypt  for 
more  than  six  months.  He  had  originally  intended  to 
return  to  Rome,  it  would  seem,  in  the  previous  November ; 
but  his  defiance  by  the  Alexandrians,  and  later  the  siege 
of  the  Palace,  had  given  him  a  reasonable  excuse  for 

'  Just  as  the  British  Army  of  Occupation  now  in  Egypt  was  originally 
stationed  there  to  support  the  Khedive  upon  his  throne  and  to  keep  order. 
Corresponding  to  the  actual  season  of  February. 


ii6     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


remaining  with  Cleopatra.  Being  by  nature  an  oppor- 
tunist, he  had  come  during  these  months  to  interest 
himself  keenly  in  Egyptian  affairs,  and,  as  we  have  seen, 
both  they  and  his  passion  for  the  Queen  had  fully  occu- 
pied his  attention.  The  close  of  the  war,  however,  did 
not  mean  to  him  the  termination  of  these  interests,  but 
rather  the  beginning  of  the  opportunity  for  putting  his 
schemes  into  execution.  He  must  have  been  deeply  im- 
pressed by  the  possibilities  of  expansive  exploitation 
which  Egypt  offered.  Cleopatra,  no  doubt,  had  told 
him  much  concerning  the  wonders  of  the  land,  wonders 
which  she  herself  had  never  yet  found  occasion  to  verify. 
He  had  heard  from  her,  and  had  received  visible  proof, 
of  the  wealth  of  the  Nile  Valley ;  and  his  march  through 
the  Delta  must  have  revealed  to  him  the  richness  of  the 
country.  No  man  could  fail  to  be  impressed  by  the 
spectacle  of  the  miles  upon  miles  of  grain  fields  which 
are  to  be  seen  in  Lower  Egypt ;  and  reports  had  doubt- 
less reached  him  of  the  splendours  of  the  upper  reaches 
of  the  Nile,  where  a  peaceful  and  law-abiding  population 
found  time  both  to  reap  three  crops  a  year  from  the 
fertile  earth,  and  to  build  huge  temples  for  their  gods  and 
palaces  for  their  nobles.  The  yearly  tax  upon  corn  alone 
in  Egypt,  which  was  paid  in  kind,  must  have  amounted 
to  some  twenty  millions  of  bushels,  the  figure  at  which 
it  stood  in  the  reign  of  Augustus ;  and  this  fact,  if 
no  other,  must  have  given  Csesar  cause  for  much 
covetousness. 

He  had  probably  heard,  too,  of  the  trade  with  India, 
which  was  already  beginning  to  flourish,  and  which,  a 
few  years  later,  came  to  be  of  the  utmost  importance ;  ^ 
and  he  had  doubtless  been  told  of  the  almost  fabulous 

^  Pliny,  vi.  26. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  117 


lands  of  Ethiopia,  to  which  Egypt  was  the  threshold, 
whence  came  the  waters  of  the  Nile.  Egypt  has  always 
been  a  land  of  speculation,  attracting  alike  the  interest  of 
the  financier  and  the  enthusiasm  of  the  conqueror ;  and 
Caesar's  imagination  must  have  been  stimulated  by  those 
ambitious  schemes  which  have  fired  the  brains  of  so 
many  of  her  conquerors,  just  as  that  of  the  great 
Alexander  had  been  inspired  three  centuries  before. 
Feeling  that  his  work  in  Gaul  and  the  north-west  was 
more  or  less  completed,  he  may,  perhaps,  have  con- 
sidered the  expediency  of  carrying  Roman  arms  into  the 
uttermost  parts  of  Ethiopia  ;  of  crossing  the  Red  Sea 
into  Arabia ;  or  of  penetrating,  like  Alexander,  to  India 
and  to  the  marvellous  kingdoms  of  the  East.  Even  so, 
eighteen  hundred  years  later.  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
dreamed  of  marching  his  army  through  Egypt  to  the 
lands  of  Hindustan ;  and  so  also  England,  striving  to 
hold  her  beloved  India  (as  the  prophetic  Kinglake  wrote 
in  1844),  fixed  her  gaze  upon  the  Nile  Valley,  until,  as 
though  by  the  passive  force  of  her  desire,  it  fell  into  her 
hands.  For  long  the  Greeks  had  thought  that  the  Nile 
came  from  the  east  and  rose  in  the  hills  of  India ;  and 
even  in  the  days  with  which  we  are  now  dealing  Egypt 
was  regarded  as  the  gateway  of  those  lands.  The  trade- 
route  from  Alexandria  to  India  was  yearly  growing  in 
fame.  The  merchants  journeyed  up  the  Nile  to  the  city 
of  Koptos,  and  thence  travelled  by  caravan  across  the 
desert  to  the  seaport  of  Berenice,  whence  they  sailed 
with  the  trade  wind  to  Muziris,  on  the  west  coast  of 
India,  near  the  modern  Calicut  and  Mysore.  It  is 
possible  that  Caesar  had  succumbed  to  the  fascination 
of  distant  conquest  and  exploration  with  which  Egypt, 
by  reason  of  her  geographical  situation,  has  inspired  so 


ii8     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


many  minds,  and  that  he  was  allowing  his  thoughts  to 
travel  with  the  merchants  along  the  great  routes  to  the 
East.  He  must  always  have  felt  that  the  unconquered 
Parthians  would  cause  a  march  across  Asia  to  India  to 
be  a  most  difficult  and  hazardous  undertaking,  and  there 
was  some  doubt  whether  he  would  be  able  to  repeat  the 
exploits  of  Alexander  the  Great  along  that  route  ;  but 
here  through  Egypt  lay  a  road  to  the  Orient  which 
might  be  followed  without  grave  risk.  The  merchants 
were  wont  to  leave  Berenice,  on  the  Egyptian  coast, 
about  the  middle  of  July,  when  the  Dog-star  rose  with 
the  Sun,  reaching  the  west  coast  of  India  about  the 
middle  of  September ;  ^  and  it  would  be  strange  indeed 
if  Caesar  had  not  given  some  consideration  to  the 
possibility  of  carrying  his  army  by  that  route  to  the 
lands  which  Alexander,  of  whose  exploits  he  loved  to 
read,  had  conquered. 

Abundant  possibilities  such  as  these  must  have  filled 
his  mind,  and  may  have  been  the  partial  cause  of  his 
desire  to  stay  yet  a  little  while  longer  in  this  fascinating 
country ;  but  there  was  another  and  a  more  poignant 
reason  which  urged  him  to  wait  for  a  few  weeks  more 
in  Egypt.  Cleopatra  was  about  to  become  a  mother. 
Seven  months  had  passed  since  those  days  in  October 
when  Caesar  had  applied  himself  so  eagerly  to  the  task  of 
winning  the  love  of  the  Queen,  and  of  procuring  her  sur- 
render to  his  wishes ;  and  now,  in  another  few  weeks, 
the  child  of  their  romance  would  be  placed  in  his  arms. 
Old  profligate  though  he  was,  it  seems  that  he  saw  some- 
thing in  the  present  situation  different  from  those  in 
which  he  had  found  himself  before.  Cleopatra,  by  her 
brilliant  wit,  her  good  spirits,  her  peculiar  charm  of 

1  Pliny,  vi.  26. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  119 


manner,  her  continuous  courage,  and  her  boundless 
optimism,  had  managed  to  retain  his  love  throughout 
these  months  of  their  close  proximity;  and  an  appeal 
had  been  made  to  the  more  tender  side  of  his  nature 
which  could  not  be  resisted.  He  wished  to  be  near  her 
in  her  hour  of  trial ;  and,  moreover  (for  in  Caesar's  actions 
there  was  always  a  practical  as  well  as  a  sentimental 
motive),  it  is  probable  that  he  entertained  high  hopes  of 
receiving  from  Cleopatra  an  heir  to  his  worldly  wealth 
and  position,  who  should  be  in  due  course  fully  legiti- 
mised. His  long  intercourse  with  the  Queen  had  much 
altered  his  point  of  view ;  and  I  think  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  his  mind  was  eagerly  feeling  forward  to  new 
developments  and  revolutionary  changes  in  his  life. 

At  Cleopatra's  wish  he  was  now  allowing  himself  to  be 
recognised  by  the  Egyptians  as  the  divine  consort  of  the 
Queen,  an  impersonation  of  the  god  Jupiter-Amon  upon 
earth.  Some  form  of  marriage  had  taken  place  between 
them,  or,  at  any  rate,  the  Egyptian  people,  if  not  the 
cynical  Alexandrians,  had  been  constrained  to  recognise 
their  legal  union.  The  approaching  birth  of  the  child 
had  made  it  necessary  for  Cleopatra  to  disclose  her  rela- 
tionship with  Caesar,  and  at  the  same  time  to  prove  to 
her  subjects  that  she,  their  Queen,  was  not  merely  the 
mistress  of  an  adventurous  Roman.  As  soon,  therefore, 
as  her  brother  and  formal  husband  Ptolemy  XIV.  had 
died,  she  had  begun  to  circulate  the  belief  that  Julius 
Caesar  was  the  great  god  of  Egypt  himself  come  to 
earth,  and  that  the  child  which  was  about  to  make  its 
appearance  was  the  offspring  of  a  divine  union.  Upon 
the  walls  of  the  temples  of  Egypt,  notably  at  Hermonthis, 
near  Thebes,  bas-reliefs  were  afterwards  sculptured  in 
which  Cleopatra  was  represented  in  converse  with  the 


120     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


god  Amon,  who  appears  in  human  form,  and  in  which 
the  gods  are  shown  assisting  at  the  celestial  birth  of  the 
child,  A  mythological  fiction  of  a  similar  nature  had 
been  employed  in  ancient  Egypt  in  reference  to  the 
births  of  earlier  sovereigns,  those  of  Hatshepsut  (B.C. 
1500)  and  of  Amenophis  III.  (b.c.  1400)  being  two  par- 
ticular instances.  In  the  known  occasions  of  its  use,  the 
royal  parentage  of  the  child  had  been  open  to  question, 
this  being  the  reason  why  the  story  of  the  divine  inter- 
course was  introduced  ;  and  thus  in  the  case  of  Cleopatra 
the  myth  had  become  familiar,  by  frequent  use,  to  the 
priest-ridden  minds  of  the  Egyptians,  and  was  not  in  any 
way  startling  or  original.  In  the  later  years  of  the 
Queen's  reign  events  were  dated  as  from  this  sui)er- 
natural  occurrence,  and  there  is  preserved  to  us  an 
epitaph  inscribed  in  the  "twentieth  year  of  (or  after) 
the  union  of  Cleopatra  with  Amon." 

Caesar  was  quite  willing  thus  to  be  reckoned  in  Egypt 
as  a  divinity.  His  hero  Alexander  the  Great  in  like 
manner  had  been  regarded  as  a  deity,  and  had  pro- 
claimed himself  the  son  of  Amon,  causing  himself  to  be 
portrayed  with  the  ram's  horns  of  that  god  projecting 
from  the  sides  of  his  head.  Though  his  belief  in  the 
gods  was  conspicuously  absent,  Caesar  had  always 
boasted  of  his  divine  descent,  his  family  tracing  their 
genealogy  to  lulus,  the  son  of  iEneas,  the  son  of 
Anchises  and  the  goddess  Venus ;  and  there  is  every 
reason  to  suppose  that  Cleopatra  had  attempted  to 
encourage  him  to  think  of  himself  as  being  in  very 
truth  a  god  upon  earth.  She  herself  ruled  Egypt  by 
divine  right,  and  deemed  it  no  matter  for  doubt  that 
she  was  the  representative  of  the  Sun-god  here  below, 
the   mediator   between   man   and   his  creator.  The 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  121 

Egyptians,  if  not  the  Alexandrians,  fell  flat  upon  their 
faces  when  they  saw  her,  and  hailed  her  as  god,  in  the 
manner  in  which  their  fathers  had  hailed  the  ancient 
Pharaohs.  From  earliest  childhood  she  had  been  called 
a  divinity,  and  she  was  named  an  immortal  in  the  temples 
of  Egypt  as  by  undoubted  right.  Those  who  came  into 
contact  with  her  partook  of  the  divine  affluence,  and  her 
companions  were  holy  in  the  sight  of  her  Egyptian  sub- 
jects. Caesar,  as  her  consort,  thus  became  a  god  ;  and  as 
soon  as  her  connection  with  him  was  made  public,  he 
assumed  ex  officio  the  nature  of  a  divine  being.  We  shall 
see  presently  how,  even  in  Rome,  he  came  to  regard  him- 
self as  more  than  mortal,  and  how,  setting  aside  in  his 
own  favour  his  disbelief  in  the  immortals,  before  he  died 
he  had  publicly  called  himself  god  upon  earth.  At  the 
present  period  of  his  life,  however,  these  startling 
assumptions  were  not  clearly  defined ;  and  it  is  prob- 
able that  he  really  did  not  know  what  to  think  about 
himself.  Cleopatra  had  fed  his  mind  with  strange 
thoughts,  and  had  so  flattered  his  vanity,  though  prob- 
ably without  intention,  that  if  he  could  but  acknowledge 
the  existence  of  a  better  world,  he  was  quite  prepared  to 
believe  himself  in  some  sort  of  manner  come  from  it. 
She  knew  that  she  herself  was  supposed  to  be  divine ; 
she  loved  Caesar  and  had  made  him  her  equal ;  she  was 
aware  that  he,  too,  was  said  to  be  descended  from  the 
gods :  and  thus,  by  a  tacit  assumption,  it  seems  to  me 
that  she  gradually  forced  upon  him  a  sense  of  his  divinity 
which,  in  the  succeeding  years,  developed  into  a  fixed 
belief. 

This  appreciation  of  his  divine  nature,  which  we  see 
growing  in  Caesar's  mind,  carried  with  it,  of  course,  a 
feeling  of  monarchical  power,  a  desire  to  assume  the 


122     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


prerogatives  of  kingship.  Cleopatra  seems  now  to  have 
been  naming  him  her  consort,  and  in  Egypt,  as  v^^e  have 
said,  he  must  have  been  recognised  as  her  legal  husband. 
He  was  already,  in  a  manner  of  speaking,  King  of  Egypt ; 
and  the  fact  that  he  was  not  officially  crowned  as  Pharaoh 
must  have  been  due  entirely  to  his  own  objection  to  such 
a  proceeding.  The  Egyptians  must  now  have  been  per- 
fectly willing  to  offer  to  him  the  throne  of  the  Ptolemies, 
just  as  they  had  accepted  Archelaus,  the  High  Priest  of 
Komana,  as  consort  of  Berenice  IV.,  Cleopatra's  half- 
sister  ;  ^  and  in  these  days  when  their  young  Queen  was 
so  soon  to  become  a  mother  there  must  have  been  a 
genuine  and  eager  desire  to  regularise  the  situation  by 
such  a  marriage  with  Caesar  and  his  elevation  to  the 
throne.  Nothing  could  be  more  happy  politically  than 
the  Queen's  marriage  to  the  greatest  man  in  Rome,  and 
we  have  already  seen  how  there  was  some  idea  of  a  union 
with  Cnaeus  Pompeius  in  the  days  when  that  man's 
father  was  the  ruler  of  the  Republic.  To  the  Egyptian 
mind  the  fact  that  Csesar  was  already  a  married  man, 
with  a  wife  living  in  Rome,  was  no  real  objection.  She 
had  borne  him  no  son,  and  therefore  might  be  divorced 
in  favour  of  a  more  fruitful  vine.  Cleopatra  herself  must 
have  been  keenly  desirous  to  share  her  Egyptian  throne 
with  Csesar,  for  no  doubt  she  saw  clearly  enough  that, 
since  he  was  already  autocrat  and  actual  Dictator  of 
Rome,  it  would  not  be  long  before  they  became 
sovereigns  of  the  whole  Roman  world.  If  she  could 
persuade  him,  like  Archelaus  of  Komana,  to  accept  the 
crown  of  the  Pharaohs,  there  was  good  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  he  would  try  to  induce  Rome  to  offer  him  the 
sovereignty  of  his  own  country-.    The  tendency  towards 

>  Page  57. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  123 


monarchical  rule  in  the  Roman  capital,  thanks  largely  to 
Pompey,  was  already  very  apparent ;  and  both  Caesar 
and  Cleopatra  must  have  realised  that,  if  they  played 
their  game  with  skill,  a  throne  awaited  them  in  that  city 
at  no  very  distant  date. 

Cleopatra  was  a  keen  patriot,  or  rather  she  was  deeply 
concerned  in  the  advancement  of  her  own   and  her 
dynasty's  fortunes ;  and  it  must  have  been  a  matter 
of  the  utmost  satisfaction  to  her  to  observe  the  direc- 
tion in  which  events  were  moving.     The  man  whom 
she  loved,  and  who  loved  her,  might  at  any  moment 
become  actual  sovereign  of  Rome  and  its  dominions ; 
and  the  child  with  which  she  was  about  to  present 
him,  if  it  were  a  boy,  would  be  the  heir  of  the  entire 
world.    For  years  her  dynasty  had  feared  that  Rome 
would  crush   them  out  of  existence  and   absorb  her 
kingdom   into   the   Republic ;   but   now  there  was  a 
possibility  that  Egypt,  and  the  lands  to  which  the 
Nile  Valley  was  the  gateway,  would  become  the  equal 
of  Rome  at  the  head  of  the  great  amalgamation  of  the 
nations  of  the  earth.    Egypt,  it  must  be  remembered, 
was  still  unconquered  by  Rome,  and  was,  at  the  time, 
the  most  wealthy  and  important   nation  outside  the 
Republic.     All  Alexandrians  and  Egyptians  believed 
themselves  to  be  the  foremost  people  in  the  world ; 
and  thus  to  Cleopatra  the  dream  that  Egypt  might 
play  the  leading  part  in  an  Egypto  -  Roman  empire 
was  in  no  wise  fantastic. 

Her  policy,  then,  was  obvious.  She  must  attempt 
to  retain  Caesar's  affection,  and  at  the  same  time  must 
nurse  with  care  the  growing  aspirations  towards 
monarchy  which  were  developing  in  his  mind.  She 
must  bind  him  to  her  so  that,  when  the  time  came. 


124     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


she  might  ascend  the  throne  of  the  world  by  his  side; 
and  she  must  make  apparent  to  him,  and  keep  ever 
present  to  his  imagination,  the  fact  of  her  own  puissance 
and  the  splendour  of  her  royal  status,  so  that  there 
should  be  no  doubt  in  Caesar's  mind  that  her  flesh  and 
blood,  and  hers  alone,  were  fitted  to  blend  with  his  in 
the  foundation  of  that  single  royal  line  which  was  to 
rule  the  whole  Earth. 

Approaching  motherhood,  it  would  seem,  had  much 
sobered  her  wild  nature,  and  the  glory  of  her  ambitions 
had  raised  her  thoughts  to  a  level  from  which  she  must 
have  contemplated  with  disdain  her  early  struggles  with 
the  drowned  Ptolemy,  the  decapitated  Potheinos,  the 
murdered  Achillas,  and  the  outlawed  Theodotos.  She, 
Cleopatra,  was  the  daughter  of  the  Sun,  the  sister  of  the 
Moon,  and  the  kinswoman  of  the  heavenly  beings ;  she 
was  mated  to  the  descendant  of  Venus  and  the  Olympian 
gods,  and  the  unborn  offspring  of  their  union  would  be 
in  very  truth  King  of  Earth  and  Heaven. 

Historians  both  ancient  and  modern  are  agreed  that 
Cleopatra  was  a  woman  of  exceptional  mental  power. 
Her  character,  so  often  wayward  in  expression,  was  as 
dominant  as  her  personality  was  strong ;  and  she  must 
have  found  no  difficulty  in  making  her  appeal  to  the 
soaring  ambitions  of  the  great  Roman.  When  occasion 
demanded  she  carried  herself  with  dignity  befitting  the 
descendant  of  an  ancient  line  of  kings,  and  even  in  her 
escapades  the  royalty  of  her  person  was  at  all  times 
apparent.  The  impression  which  she  has  left  upon  the 
world  is  that  of  a  woman  who  was  always  significant 
of  the  splendour  of  monarchy;  and  her  influence  upon 
Caesar  in  this  regard  is  not  to  be  overlooked.  A  man 
such  as  he  could  not  live  for  six  months  in  close  contact 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  125 


with  a  queen  without  feeling  to  some  extent  the  glamour 
of  royalty.  She  represented  monarchy  in  its  most  abso- 
lute form,  and  in  Egypt  her  word  was  law.  The  very 
tone  of  her  royal  mode  of  life  must  have  constituted  new 
matter  for  Caesar's  mind  to  ruminate  upon  ;  and  that 
trait  in  his  character  which  led  him  to  abhor  the  thought 
of  subordination  to  any  living  man,  must  have  caused 
him  to  watch  the  actions  of  an  autocratic  queen  with 
frank  admiration  and  restless  envy.  Tales  of  the  Kings 
of  Alexandria  and  stories  of  the  ancient  Pharaohs  with- 
out doubt  were  narrated,  and  without  doubt  took  some 
place  in  Caesar's  brain.  Cleopatra's  point  of  view,  that 
of  the  most  royal  of  the  world's  royal  houses,  must,  by 
its  very  unfamiliarity,  have  impressed  itself  upon  his 
thoughts. 

Thus,  little  by  little,  under  the  influence  of  the 
Egyptian  Queen  and  in  the  power  of  his  own  sleepless 
ambitions,  Caesar  began  to  give  serious  thought  to  the 
possibilities  of  creating  a  world-empire  over  which  he 
should  rule  as  king,  founding  a  royal  line  which  should 
sit  upon  the  supreme  earthly  throne  for  ages  to  come. 
Obviously  it  must  have  occurred  to  him  that  kings  must 
rule  by  right  of  royal  blood,  and  that  his  own  blood, 
though  noble  and  though  said  to  be  of  divine  origin,  was 
not  such  as  would  give  his  descendants  unquestionable 
command  over  the  loyalty  of  their  subjects.  A  man  who 
is  the  descendant  of  many  kings  has  a  right  to  royalty 
which  the  son  of  a  conqueror,  however  honourable  his 
origin,  does  not  possess.  So  thought  Napoleon  when  he 
married  the  Austrian  princess,  founding  a  royal  house  in 
his  country  by  using  the  royal  blood  of  another  land  for 
the  purpose.  Looking  around  him  with  this  thought  in 
view,  Caesar  could  not  well  have  chosen  anybody  but 


126     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Cleopatra  as  the  foundress  of  his  line.  There  was  no 
Roman  royal  house  extant,  and  therefore  a  Greek  was 
the  best,  if  not  the  only,  possible  alternative;  and  the 
Ptolemaic  Kings  of  Egypt  were  pure  Macedonians,  de- 
riving their  descent,  by  popular  belief,  if  not  in  actual 
fact,  from  the  royal  house  of  Caesar's  hero,  Alexander 
the  Great.  He  may  well,  then,  have  contemplated  with 
enthusiasm  the  thought  of  the  future  monarchs  of  Rome 
sitting  by  inherited  right  upon  the  ancient  throne  of 
Macedonian  Egypt ;  and  Cleopatra  on  her  part  was  no 
doubt  inspired  by  the  idea  of  future  Pharaohs,  blood  of 
her  blood  and  bone  of  her  bone,  ruling  Rome  by 
hereditary  authority. 

Cleopatra  of  necessity  had  to  find  a  husband.  Already 
she  had  postponed  her  marriage  beyond  the  age  at  which 
such  an  event  should  take  place ;  and  any  union  with  her 
CO  -  regnant  brother  could  but  be  of  a  formal  nature. 
Caesar  now  had  come  into  her  life,  capturing  her  youthful 
affections  and  causing  himself  to  be  the  parent  of  her 
child ;  and  it  is  but  natural  to  suppose  that  she  would 
endeavour  by  every  means  in  her  power  to  make  him  her 
lifelong  consort,  thus  adding  to  her  own  royal  stock  the 
worthiest  blood  of  Rome.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
whether  or  not  she  might  succeed  in  making  Caesar  him- 
self Pharaoh  of  Egypt,  she  intended  to  hand  on  the 
Egyptian  throne  to  her  child  and  his,  adding  to  the 
name  of  Ptolemy  that  of  the  family  of  the  Caesars, 
Thus  it  may  be  said,  though  my  assumption  at  first  seems 
startling,  that  the  Roman  Empire  to  a  large  extent  owes 
its  existence  to  the  Egyptian  Queen,  for  the  monarchy 
was  in  many  respects  the  child  of  the  union  of  Caesar 
and  Cleopatra. 

These  as  yet  undefined  ambitions  and  hopes  found 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  127 


a  very  real  and  material  expression  in  Caesar's  eagerness 
to  know  whether  the  expected  babe  would  be  a  girl,  or  a 
son  and  heir ;  and  it  seems  likely  that  his  determination 
to  remain  in  Egypt  was  largely  due  to  his  unwillingness 
to  depart  before  that  question  was  answered.  This,  and 
the  paternal  responsibility  which  perhaps  for  the  first 
time  in  his  sordid  life  he  had  ever  felt,  led  him  to  post- 
pone his  return  to  Rome.  He  seems  to  have  entertained 
feelings  of  the  greatest  tenderness  towards  the  Queen, 
whom  he  was  beginning  to  regard  as  his  wife;  and  he 
was,  no  doubt,  anxious  to  be  near  her  during  the  ordeal 
through  which  the  young  and  delicately-built  girl  had, 
for  the  first  time,  to  pass.  It  has  been  the  custom  for 
historians  to  attribute  Caesar's  prolonged  residence  in 
Egypt,  after  the  termination  of  the  war  and  the  settle- 
ment of  Egyptian  affairs,  to  the  sensuous  allurements  of 
Cleopatra,  who  is  supposed  to  have  held  him  captive  by 
the  arts  of  love  and  by  the  voluptuous  attractions  of  her 
person ;  but  here  a  natural  fact  of  life  has  been  over- 
looked. A  woman  who  is  about  to  render  to  mankind 
the  great  service  of  her  sex,  has  neither  the  ability  nor 
the  desire  to  arouse  the  feverish  emotions  of  her  lover. 
Her  condition  calls  forth  from  him  the  more  gentle 
aspects  of  his  affection.  His  responsibility  is  expressed 
in  consideration,  in  interest,  in  sympathy,  and  in  a  kind 
of  gratitude ;  but  it  is  palpably  absurd  to  suppose  that  a 
mere  passion,  such  as  that  by  which  Caesar  is  thought  to 
have  been  animated,  could  at  this  time  have  influenced 
his  actions.  If  love  of  any  kind  held  him  in  Egypt,  it 
was  the  love  of  a  husband  for  his  wife,  the  devotion  of 
a  man  who  was  about  to  become  a  parent  to  the  woman 
who  would  presently  pay  toll  to  Nature  in  response  to 
his  incitement.    Actually,  as  we  have  seen,  there  was 


128     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


something  more  than  love  to  keep  him  in  Egypt ;  there 
was  ambition,  headlong  aspiration,  the  intoxication  of  a 
conqueror  turning  his  mind  to  new  conquests,  and  the 
supreme  interest  of  a  would-be  king  constructing  a 
throne  which  should  be  occupied  not  only  by  himself 
but  by  the  descendants  of  his  own  flesh  and  blood  for 
all  time.^ 

While  waiting  for  the  desired  event  Caesar  could  not 
remain  inactive  in  the  Palace  at  Alexandria.  He  desired 
to  ascertain  for  himself  the  resources  of  the  land  which 
was  to  be  considered  as  his  wife's  dowry ;  and  he  there- 
fore determined  to  conduct  a  peaceful  expedition  up  the 
Nile  with  this  subject  in  view.  The  royal  dahabiyeh  or 
house  -  boat  was  therefore  made  ready  for  himself  and 
Cleopatra,  whose  condition  might  be  expected  to  benefit 
by  the  idle  and  yet  interesting  life  upon  the  river ;  and 
orders  were  given  both  to  his  own  legionaries  and  to  a 
considerable  number  of  Cleopatra's  troops  to  prepare 
themselves  for  embarkation  upon  a  fleet  of  four  hundred 
Nile  vessels.  The  number  of  ships  suggests  that  there 
were  several  thousand  soldiers  employed  in  the  expedi- 

1  It  has  generally  been  stated  that  Caesar  left  Eg)'pt  before  the  birth  of 
Csesarion,  an  opinion  which,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Appian  says  he  remained 
nine  months  in  Egypt,  has  always  seemed  to  me  improbable  ;  for  it  is  surely 
more  than  a  coincidence  that  he  delayed  his  departure  from  Egypt  until  the 
very  month  in  which  Cleopatra's  and  his  child  was  to  be  expected  to  arrive,  he 
having  met  her  in  the  previous  October.  Plutarch's  statement  may  be  inter- 
preted as  meaning  that  Csesar  departed  to  Syria  after  the  birth  of  his  son.  I 
think  that  Cicero's  remark,  in  a  letter  dated  in  June  B.C.  47,  that  there  was  a 
serious  hindrance  to  Cresar's  departure  from  Alexandria,  refers  to  the  event 
for  which  he  was  waiting.  Those  who  suggest  that  Caesar  did  noi  remain  in 
Egypt  so  long  are  obliged  to  deny  that  the  authors  are  correct  in  stating  that 
he  went  up  the  Nile  ;  and  they  have  to  disregard  the  positive  statement  of 
Appian  that  the  Dictator's  visit  lasted  nine  months.  Moreover,  the  date  of 
the  celebration  of  Caesarion's  seventeenth  birthday  (as  recorded  on  p.  361)  is 
a  further  indication  that  he  was  born  no  later  than  the  beginning  of  July. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  129 


tion ;  and  it  appears  to  have  been  Caesar's  intention  to 
penetrate  far  into  the  Sudan.^  The  royal  vessel,  or 
thalamegos,  as  it  was  called  by  the  Greeks,  was  of 
immense  size,  and  was  propelled  by  many  banks  of  oars.- 
It  contained  colonnaded  courts,  banqueting  saloons, 
sitting-rooms,  bedrooms,  shrines  dedicated  to  Venus 
and  to  Dionysos,  and  a  grotto  or  "winter  garden." 
The  wood  employed  was  cedar  and  cypress,  and  the 
decorations  were  executed  in  paint  and  gold-leaf.  The 
furniture  was  Greek,  with  the  exception  of  that  in  one 
dining-hall,  which  was  decorated  in  the  Egyptian  style.^ 
The  rest  of  the  fleet  consisted,  no  doubt,  of  galleys  and 
ordinary  native  transports  and  store-ships. 

From  the  city  of  Alexandria  the  fleet  passed  into  the 
nearest  branch  of  the  Nile,  and  so  travelled  southwards 
to  Memphis,  where  Cleopatra  perhaps  obtained  her  first 
sight  of  the  great  Pyramids  and  the  Sphinx.  Thebes, 
the  ancient  capital,  at  that  period  much  fallen  into  decay, 
was  probably  reached  in  about  three  weeks'  time ;  and 
Caesar  must  have  been  duly  impressed  by  the  splendid 
temples  and  monuments  upon  both  banks  of  the  Nile. 
Possibly  it  was  at  his  suggestion  that  Cleopatra  caused 
the  great  obelisk  of  one  of  her  distant  predecessors  to 
be  moved  from  the  temple  of  Luxor  at  Thebes  and  to 
be  transported  down  to  Alexandria,  where  it  was  erected 
not  far  from  the  Forum,*  an  inscription  recording  its 

^  It  has  generally  been  thought  that  this  was  simply  a  pleasure  cruise  up  the 
Nile ;  but  the  number  of  ships  (given  by  Appian)  indicates  that  many  troops 
were  employed,  and  the  troops  are  referred  to  by  Suetonius  also. 

^  The  thalatncgos  described  by  Athenseus  was  not  that  used  on  this  occasion, 
but  the  description  will  serve  to  give  an  idea  of  its  luxury. 

'  Athenaeus,  v.  37.  The  number  of  banks  of  oars  and  the  measurements, 
as  given  by  him,  are  probably  exaggerated. 

^  It  was  presented  to  the  British  Government,  and  now  stands  on  the 
Thames  Embankment  in  London.    It  is  known  as  "Cleopatra's  Needle." 

I 


130     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


re-erection  being  engraved  at  the  base.  The  journey 
was  continued  probably  as  far  as  Aswan  and  the  First 
Cataract,  which  may  have  been  reached  some  four  or 
five  weeks  after  the  departure  from  Alexandria ;  and  it 
would  seem  that  Caesar  here  turned  his  face  to  the 
north  once  more,  Suetonius  states  that  he  was  anxious 
to  proceed  farther  up  the  Nile,  but  that  his  troops  were 
restive  and  inclined  to  be  mutinous,  a  fact  which  is  not 
surprising,  since  the  labour  of  dragging  the  vessels  up 
the  cataract  would  have  been  immense,  and  the  hot 
south  winds  which  often  blow  in  the  spring  would  have 
added  considerably  to  the  difficulties.  The  tempera- 
ture at  this  time  of  year  may  rise  suddenly  from  the 
pleasant  degree  of  an  Egyptian  winter  to  that  of  the 
height  of  intolerable  summer,  and  so  remain  for  four  or 
five  days. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  Caesar  turned  about,  having  satisfied 
himself  as  to  the  wealth  and  fertility  of  the  country, 
and,  no  doubt,  having  obtained  as  much  information  as 
possible  from  the  natives  in  regard  to  the  trade-routes 
which  led  from  the  Nile  to  Berenice  and  India,  or  to 
Meroe,  Napata,  and  the  Kingdom  of  Ethiopia.  The 
expedition  arrived  at  Alexandria  probably  some  nine  or 
ten  weeks  after  its  departure  from  that  city — that  is  to 
say,  at  the  end  of  the  month  of  June ;  and  it  would  seem 
that  in  the  first  week  of  July  Cleopatra's  confinement 
took  place. 

The  child  proved  to  be  a  boy;  and  the  delighted 
father  thus  found  himself  the  parent  of  a  son  and  heir 
who  was  at  once  accepted  by  the  Egyptians  as  the 
legitimate  child  of  the  union  of  their  Queen  with  the 
god  Amon,  who  had  appeared  in  the  form  of  Caesar. 
He  was  named  Caesar,  or  more  familiarly  Caesarion,  a 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  131 


Greek  diminutive  of  the  same  word;  but  officially,  of 
course,  he  was  known  also  as  Ptolemy,  and  ultimately 
was  the  sixteenth  and  last  of  that  name.  A  bilingual 
inscription  now  preserved  at  Turin  refers  to  him  as 
"  Ptolemy,  who  is  also  called  Caesar,"  this  being  often 
seen  in  Egyptian  inscriptions  in  the  words  Ptolemys  zed 
nef  Kysares,  "  Ptolemy  called  Caesar." 

The  Dictator  waited  no  longer  in  Egypt.  For  the 
last  few  months  he  had  put  Roman  politics  from  his 
thoughts  and  had  not  even  troubled  to  write  any  de- 
spatches to  the  home  Government.^  But  now  he  had 
to  create  the  world-monarchy  of  which  his  winter  with 
Cleopatra  had  led  him  to  dream  ;  and  first  there  were 
campaigns  to  be  fought  on  the  borders  of  the  Medi- 
terranean ;  there  was  Parthia  to  be  subdued ;  and  finally 
India  was  to  be  invaded  and  conquered.  Then,  when 
all  the  known  world  had  become  dependent  upon  him, 
and  only  Egypt  and  her  tributaries  were  still  outside 
Roman  dominion,  he  would,  by  one  bold  stroke,  an- 
nounce his  marriage  to  the  Queen  of  that  country, 
incorporate  her  lands  and  her  vast  wealth  with  those 
of  Rome,  and  declare  himself  sole  monarch  of  the  earth. 
It  was  a  splendid  ambition,  worthy  of  a  great  man ;  and, 
as  we  shall  presently  see,  there  can  be  very  little  ques- 
tion that  these  glorious  dreams  would  have  been  con- 
verted into  actual  realities  had  not  his  enemies  murdered 
him  on  the  eve  of  their  realisation.  Modern  historians 
are  unanimous  in  declaring  that  Caesar  had  wasted  his 
time  in  Egypt,  and  had  devoted  to  a  love  intrigue  the 
weeks  and  months  which  ought  to  have  been  spent  in 
regulating  the  affairs  of  the  world.  Actually,  however, 
these  nine  months,  far  from  being  wasted,  were  spent 

^  Cicero,  A.  xi.  17.  13. 


132     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


in  the  very  creation  of  the  Roman  Empire.  True, 
Caesar's  schemes  were  frustrated  by  the  knives  of  his 
assassins ;  but,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  sequel,  his  plans 
were  carried  on  by  Cleopatra  with  the  assistance  of 
Antony,  and  finally  were  put  into  execution  by 
Octavian. 

As  Caesar  sailed  out  of  the  Great  Harbour  of  Alex- 
andria he  must  have  turned  his  keen  grey  eyes  with 
peculiar  interest  upon  the  splendid  buildings  of  the 
Palace,  which  towered  in  front  of  the  city,  upon  the 
Lochias  Promontory ;  and  that  quiet,  whimsical  expres- 
sion must  have  played  around  his  close-shut  lips  as  he 
thought  of  the  change  that  had  been  wrought  in  his 
mental  attitude  by  the  months  spent  amidst  its  royal 
luxuries.  Enthusiasm  for  the  work  which  lay  before  him 
must  have  burnt  like  a  fire  within  him ;  but  stamped 
upon  his  brain  there  must  have  been  the  picture  of  a 
darkened  room  in  which  the  wild,  happy-go-lucky,  little 
Queen  of  Egypt,  now  so  subdued  and  so  gentle,  lay 
clasping  to  her  breast  the  new-born  Caesar,  the  sole 
heir  to  the  kingdom  of  the  whole  world. 


133 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

CLEOPATRA  AND  C^SAR  IN  ROME. 

Cesar's  movements  during  the  year  after  his  departure 
from  Egypt  do  not,  for  the  purpose  of  this  narrative, 
require  to  be  recorded  in  detail.  From  Alexandria, 
which  he  may  have  left  at  about  the  middle  of  the 
first  week  in  July,  he  sailed  in  a  fast-going  galley  across 
the  500  miles  of  open  sea  to  Antioch,  arriving  at  that 
city  a  few  days  before  the  middle  of  that  month.^  There 
he  spent  a  day  or  two  in  regulating  the  affairs  of  the 
country,  and  presently  sailed  on  to  Ephesus,  some  600 
miles  from  Antioch,  which  he  probably  reached  at  the 
end  of  the  third  week  of  July.  At  Antioch  he  heard 
that  one  of  his  generals,  Domitius  Calvinus,  had  been 
defeated  by  Pharnakes,  the  son  of  Mithridates  the  Great, 
and  had  been  driven  out  of  Pontus,  and  it  seems  that 
he  at  once  sent  three  legions  to  the  aid  of  the  beaten 
troops  with  orders  to  await  in  north-western  Galatia 
or  Cappadocia  for  his  coming.  After  a  day  or  two  at 
Ephesus,  Caesar  travelled  with  extreme  rapidity  to  the 
rendezvous,  taking  with  him  only  a  thousand  cavalry; 
and  arriving  at  Zela,  500  miles  from  Ephesus,  on  or 
before  August  2nd,  at  once  defeated  the  rebels.    It  had 

^  He  could  have  performed  the  journey  in  five  days  or  less  with  a  favourable 
wind. 


134     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


been  his  custom  in  Gaul  to  travel  by  himself  at  the  rate 
of  a  hundred  miles  a  day,  and  even  with  a  heavily  laden 
army  he  covered  over  forty  miles  a  day,  as  for  example  in 
his  march  from  Rome  to  Spain,  which  he  accomplished  in 
twenty-seven  days,  and  he  may  thus  have  joined  his  main 
army  and  commenced  his  preparations  for  the  battle  of 
Zela  as  early  as  the  last  days  of  July.  The  crushing  defeat 
which  he  inflicted  on  the  enemy  so  shortly  after  taking 
over  the  command  was  thus  a  feat  of  which  he  might 
justly  be  proud,  and  it  so  tickled  his  vanity  that  in 
writing  to  a  friend  of  his  in  Rome,  named  Amantius, 
he  described  the  campaign  in  the  three  famous  words, 
Veni,  vidi,  vici,  "  I  came,  I  saw,  I  conquered,"  which  so 
clearly  indicate  that  he  was  beginning  to  regard  himself 
as  a  sort  of  swift-footed,  irresistible  demigod. 

Thence  he  sailed  at  last  for  Italy,  and  reached  Rome 
at  the  end  of  September,  almost  exactly  a  year  after  his 
arrival  in  Egypt.  He  remained  in  Rome  not  more  than 
two  and  a  half  months,  and  about  the  middle  of  Decem- 
ber he  set  out  for  North  Africa,  where  Cato,  Scipio,  and 
other  fugitive  friends  of  Pompey  had  established  a  pro- 
visional government  with  the  assistance  of  Juba,  King 
of  Numidia,  and  were  gathering  their  forces.  Arriving 
at  Hadrumetum  on  December  28th,  he  at  once  began 
the  war,  which  soon  ended  in  the  entire  defeat  and 
extermination  of  the  enemy  at  Thapsus  on  April  6th. 
Of  the  famous  Pompeian  leaders,  Faustus  Sulla,  Lucius 
Africanus,  and  Lucius  Julius  Caesar  were  put  to  death ; 
and  Lucius  Manlius  Torquatus,  Marcus  Petreius,  Scipio, 
and  Cato  committed  suicide;  while,  according  to  Plu- 
tarch, some  fifty  thousand  men  were  slain  in  the  rout. 
Arriving  once  more  in  Rome  on  July  25th,  B.C.  46,  Caesar 
at  once  began  to  prepare  for  his  Triumph  which  was  to 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  135 


take  place  in  the  following  month ;  and  it  would  seem 
that  he  had  already  sent  messengers  to  Cleopatra,  who 
had  spent  a  quiet  year  of  maternal  interests  in  Alex- 
andria, to  tell  her  to  come  with  their  baby  to  Rome. 

According  to  Dion,  the  Queen  arrived  shortly  after 
the  Triumph,  but  several  modern  writers^  are  of  opinion 
that  she  reached  the  capital  in  time  for  that  event.  I 
am  disposed  to  think  that  she  made  the  journey  to  Italy 
in  company  with  the  Egyptian  prisoners  who  were  to 
be  displayed  in  the  procession,  Princess  Arsinoe,  the 
eunuch  Ganymedes,^  and  others,  whom  Caesar  probably 
sent  for  in  the  late  spring  of  this  year  soon  after  the 
battle  of  Thapsus.  Cleopatra  could  not  have  been 
averse  to  witnessing  the  Triumph,  for  she  must  have 
regarded  the  late  warfare  in  Alexandria  not  so  much  as 
a  Roman  campaign  against  the  Egyptians  as  an  Egypto- 
Roman  suppression  of  an  Alexandrian  insurrection.  The 
serious  part  of  the  campaign  could  be  interpreted  as 
having  been  waged  by  Caesar  on  behalf  of  herself  and 
her  brother,  Ptolemy  XIV.,  against  the  rebels  Achillas 
and  Ganymedes,  and  later  against  this  same  Ptolemy  who 
had  gone  over  to  the  enemy ;  and  the  victory  might  thus 
be  celebrated  both  by  her  and  by  her  Roman  champion. 
It  would  therefore  be  fitting  that  she  should  be  a  spec- 
tator of  the  degradation  of  Arsinoe  and  Ganymedes ;  and 
her  presence  in  Rome  at  this  time  would  obviously  be 
desirable  to  her  as  indicating  that  she  and  her  country 
had  suffered  no  defeat.  Caesar,  on  his  part,  must  have 
desired  her  presence  that  she  might  witness  the  dramatic 
demonstration  of  his  power  and  popularity.  He  had  just 
been  made  Dictator  for  the  third  time,  and  this  appoint- 

1  Notably  Dr  Mahaffy. 

2  Judging  by  the  remark  of  the  commentator  on  Lucan,  '  Pharsalia,'  x.  521. 


136     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


ment  no^doubt  led  him  to  feel  the  security  of  his  position 
and  the  imminence  of  that  rise  to  monarchical  power  in 
which  Cleopatra  and  their  son  were  to  play  so  essential 
a  part.  He  was  beginning  to  regard  himself  as  above 
criticism ;  and  his  two  great  victories,  in  Pontus  and 
Numidia,  following  upon  his  nine  months  of  regal  life 
in  Egypt,  had  somewhat  turned  his  head,  so  that  he  no 
longer  considered  the  advisability  of  delaying  his  future 
consort's  introduction  to  the  people  of  Rome.  He  had 
yet  much  to  accomplish  before  he  could  ascend  with  her 
the  throne  of  the  world,  but  there  can  be  no  question 
whatsoever  that  he  now  desired  Cleopatra  to  begin  to 
make  herself  known  in  the  capital ;  and,  this  being  so, 
it  seems  to  me  to  be  highly  probable  that  he  would 
wish  her  to  refute,  by  her  presence  as  a  witness  of  his 
Triumph,  any  suggestion  that  she  herself  was  to  be  in- 
cluded in  that  conquered  Egypt  ^  about  which  he  was 
so  continuously  boasting. 

The  Queen  of  Egypt's  arrival  in  Rome  must  have 
caused  something  of  a  sensation.  Cartloads  of  baggage, 
and  numerous  agitated  eunuchs  and  slaves  doubtless 
heralded  her  approach  and  followed  in  her  train.  Her 
little  brother,  Ptolemy  XV.,  now  eleven  or  twelve  years 
of  age,  whom  she  had  probably  feared  to  leave  alone 
in  Alexandria  lest  he  should  follow  the  family  tradition 
and  declare  himself  sole  monarch,  had  been  forced  to 
accompany  her,  and  now  added  considerably  to  the 
commotion  of  her  arrival.  The  one-year-old  heir  of 
the  Cassars  and  of  the  Ptolemies,  surrounded  by  guards 
and  fussing  nurses,  must,  however,  have  been  the  cyno- 
sure of  all  eyes ;  for  every  Roman  guessed  its  parentage, 

^  A  coin  inscribed  with  the  words  /£gypto  capta  was  struck  after  his  return 
to  Rome  (Goltzius  :  de  re  Numm.) 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  137 


knowing  as  they  did  the  pecuHarities  of  their  Dictator. 
Cleopatra  and  her  suite  were  accommodated  in  Cassar's 
transtiberini  horti,  where  a  charming  liouse  stood  amidst 
beautiful  gardens  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber,  near 
the  site  of  the  modern  Villa  Panfili;  and  it  is  to  be 
presumed  that  his  legal  wife  Calpurnia  was  left  as 
mistress  of  another  establishment  within  the  city. 

Caesar's  attitude  towards  Cleopatra  at  this  time  is  not 
easily  defined.  It  is  not  to  be  presumed  that  he  was 
still  very  deeply  in  love  with  her;  for  natures  such  as 
his  are  totally  incapable  of  continued  devotion.  During 
his  residence  in  North  Africa  in  the  winter  or  early 
spring,  he  had  been  much  attracted  by  Eunoe,  the  wife 
of  Bogud,  King  of  Mauretania,  and  had  consoled  him- 
self for  the  temporary  loss  of  Cleopatra  by  making  her 
his  mistress.  Yet  the  Queen  of  Egypt  still  exercised  a 
very  considerable  influence  over  him ;  and  when  she 
came  to  Rome  it  may  be  supposed  that  in  his  trans- 
pontine villa  they  resumed  with  some  satisfaction  the 
intimate  life  which  they  had  enjoyed  in  the  Alexandrian 
Palace.  The  first  infatuation  was  over,  however,  and 
both  Caesar  and  Cleopatra  must  have  felt  that  the  basis 
of  their  relationship  was  now  a  business  agreement  de- 
signed for  their  mutual  benefit.  In  all  but  name  they 
were  married,  and  it  was  the  fixed  intention  of  both 
that  their  marriage  should  presently  be  recognised  in 
Rome  as  it  already  had  been  in  Egypt.  Caesar,  I  sup- 
pose, took  keen  pleasure  in  the  company  of  the  witty, 
vivacious,  and  regal  girl ;  and  he  was  extremely  happy 
to  see  her  lodged  in  his  villa,  whither  he  could  repair 
at  any  time  of  the  day  or  night  to  enjoy  her  brilliant 
and  refreshing  society.  Their  baby  son,  too,  was  a 
source  of  interest  and  enjoyment  to  him.    He  was  now 


138     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


fourteen  months  old,  and  his  likeness  to  Caesar,  so  pro- 
nounced in  after  years,  must  already  have  been  apparent. 
Suetonius  states  that  the  boy  came  to  resemble  his  father 
very  closely,  and  both  in  looks  and  in  manners,  notably 
in  his  walk,  showed  very  clearly  his  origin.  These 
resemblances,  already  able  to  be  observed,  must  have 
delighted  Caesar,  who  took  such  careful  pride  in  his 
own  appearance  and  personality;  and  they  must  have 
formed  a  bond  between  himself  and  Cleopatra  as  nearly 
permanent  as  anything  could  be  in  his  progressive  and 
impatient  nature.  The  Queen,  on  her  part,  probably 
still  took  extreme  pleasure  in  the  companionship  of  the 
great  Dictator,  who  represented  an  ideal  both  of  man- 
hood and  of  social  charm.  She  must  have  loved  the 
fertility  of  his  mind,  the  autocratic  power  of  his  will, 
and  the  energy  of  his  personality ;  and  though  premature 
age  and  ill-health  were  beginning  to  diminish  his  aptitude 
for  the  role  of  ardent  swain,  she  found  in  him,  no  doubt, 
a  lovable  friend  and  husband,  and  one  with  whom  the 
intimacies  of  daily  comradeship  were  a  cause  of  genuine 
happiness.  They  were  as  well  suited  to  one  another  as 
two  ambitious  characters  could  be ;  and,  moreover,  they 
were  irrevocably  bound  to  one  another  by  the  memory 
of  past  passion  not  yet  altogether  in  abeyance,  by  the 
sympathy  of  mutual  understanding,  by  the  identity  of 
their  worldly  interests,  and  by  the  responsibilities  of 
correlative  parentage. 

The  arrival  of  Cleopatra  in  Rome  of  course  caused  a 
scandal,  to  which  Caesar  showed  his  usual  nonchalant 
indifference.  People  were  sorry  for  the  Dictator's  legal 
wife  Calpurnia,  who,  since  her  marriage  in  B.C.  59,  had 
been  left  so  much  alone  by  her  husband ;  and  they  were 
shocked  by  the  open  manner  in  which  the  members  of 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  139 


the  Caesarian  party  paid  court  to  the  Queen.  I  find 
no  evidence  to  justify  the  modern  belief^  that  Roman 
society  was  at  the  time  annoyed  at  the  introduction  of 
an  eastern  lady  into  its  midst ;  ^  for  everybody  must  have 
knovi^n  that  Cleopatra  had  not  one  drop  of  Egyptian 
blood  in  her  veins,  and  must  have  realised  that  she  wa.s 
a  pure  Macedonian  Greek,  ruling  over  a  city  which 
was  the  centre  of  Greek  culture  and  civilisation.  But 
at  the  same  time  there  is  evidence  to  show  that  the 
Romans  did  not  like  her.  Cicero  wrote  that  he  detested 
her;^  and  Dion  says  that  the  people  pitied  Princess 
Arsinoe,  her  sister,  whose  degradation  was  a  consequence 
of  Cleopatra's  success  with  Caesar.  On  the  whole,  how- 
ever, her  advent  did  not  cause  as  much  stir  as  might 
have  been  expected,  for  she  seems  to  have  acted  with 
tactful  moderation  in  the  capital,  and  to  have  avoided 
all  ostentation. 

The  Triumph  which  Csesar  celebrated  in  August  for 
the  amusement  of  Rome  and  for  his  own  enjoyment 
was  fourfold  in  character,  and  lasted  for  four  days. 
Upon  the  first  day  Caesar  passed  through  the  streets 
of  Rome  in  the  role  of  conqueror  of  Gaul,  and  when 
darkness  had  fallen  ascended  the  Capitol  by  torchlight, 
forty  elephants  carrying  numerous  torch-bearers  to  right 
and  left  of  his  chariot.  The  unfortunate  Vercingetorix, 
who  had  been  held  prisoner  for  six  miserable  years,  was 
executed  at  the  conclusion  of  this  impressive  parade — 

^  Houssaye,  '  Aspasie,  Cleopatre,  Theodora,'  p.  91,  for  example,  says  that 
society  was  shocked  at  a  Roman  being  in  love  with  an  Egyptian  ;  and  Sergeant, 
•  Cleopatra  of  Egypt,'  writes  :  "  It  was  as  an  Egyptian  that  Cleopatra  offended 
the  Romans." 

^  Horace's  Ode  was  written  after  the  engineered  talk  of  the  "eastern  peril" 
had  done  its  work — i.e.,  after  Actium. 
*  Ad  Atticum,  xv.  15. 


140     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


an  act  of  cold  -  blooded  cruelty  to  an  honourable  foe 
(who  had  voluntarily  surrendered  to  Caesar  to  save  his 
countrymen  from  further  punishment)  which,  at  the  time, 
may  have  been  excused  on  the  ground  that  such  execu- 
tions were  customary  at  the  end  of  a  Triumph.  Upon 
the  second  day  the  conquest  of  the  Dictator's  Egyptian 
enemies  was  celebrated,  and  the  Princess  Arsinoe  was 
led  through  the  streets  in  chains,  together,  it  would  seem, 
with  Ganymedes,  the  latter  perhaps  being  executed  at 
the  close  of  the  performance,  and  the  former  being  spared 
as  a  sort  of  compliment  to  Cleopatra's  royal  house.  In 
this  procession  images  of  Achillas  and  Potheinos  were 
carried  along,  and  were  greeted  by  the  populace  with 
pleasant  jeers ;  while  a  statue  representing  the  famous 
old  Nilus,  and  a  model  of  Pharos,  the  wonder  of  the 
world,  reminded  the  spectators  of  the  importance  of 
the  country  now  under  Roman  protection.  African 
animals  strange  to  Rome,  such  as  the  giraffe,  were  led 
along  in  the  procession,  and  other  wonders  from  Egypt 
and  Ethiopia  were  displayed  for  the  delight  of  the 
populace.  On  the  third  day  the  conquest  of  Pontus 
was  demonstrated,  and  a  large  tablet  with  the  arrogant 
v^'ords  Veni,  Vidi,  Vici  painted  upon  it  was  carried 
before  the  conqueror.  Finally,  on  the  fourth  day  the 
victories  in  North  Africa  were  celebrated.  In  this  last 
procession  Cassar  caused  some  offence  by  exhibiting 
captured  Roman  arms ;  for  the  campaign  had  been 
fought  against  Romans  of  the  Pompeian  party,  a  fact 
which  at  first  he  had  attempted  to  disguise  by  stating 
that  the  Triumph  was  celebrated  over  King  Juba  of 
Numidia,  who  had  sided  with  the  enemy.  Still  graver 
offence  was  caused,  however,  when  it  was  seen  that 
vulgar  caricatures  of  Cato  and  other  of  Caesar's  personal 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  141 


enemies  were  exhibited  in  the  procession ;  and  the  popu- 
lace must  have  questioned  whether  such  a  jest  at  the 
expense  of  honourable  Romans  whose  bodies  were  hardly 
yet  cold  in  their  graves  was  in  perfect  taste.  It  would 
seem  indeed  that  Caesar's  judgment  in  such  matters  had 
become  somewhat  warped  during  this  last  year  of  mili- 
tary and  administrative  success,  and  that  he  had  begun 
to  despise  those  who  were  opposed  to  him  as  though 
they  could  be  but  misguided  fools.  In  this  attitude 
one  sees,  perhaps,  something  of  that  same  quality  which 
led  him  blandly  to  accept  in  Egypt  a  sort  of  divinity 
as  by  personal  right,  and  which  persuaded  him  to  aim 
always  towards  absolutism ;  for  a  man  is  in  no  wise 
normal  who  considers  himself  a  being  meet  for  worship 
and  his  enemy  an  object  fit  only  for  derision. 

There  seems,  in  fact,  little  doubt  that  Caesar  was  not 
now  in  a  normal  condition  of  mind.  For  some  years 
he  had  been  subject  to  epileptic  seizures,  and  now  the 
distressing  malady  was  growing  more  pronounced  and 
the  seizures  were  of  more  frequent  occurrence.  At  the 
battle  of  Thapsus  he  is  said  to  have  been  taken  ill  in 
this  manner;  and  on  other  occasions  he  was  attacked 
while  in  discharge  of  his  duties.  Such  a  physical  con- 
dition may  be  accountable  for  much  of  his  growing 
eccentricity,  and,  particularly,  one  may  attribute  to  it 
his  increasing  faith  in  his  semi-divine  powers.  Lombroso 
goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  epilepsy  is  almost  an  essential 
factor  in  the  personality  of  one  who  believes  himself  to 
be  a  Son  of  God  or  Messenger  of  the  Deity.  Akhnaton, 
the  great  religious  reformer  of  Ancient  Egypt,  suffered 
from  epilepsy;  the  Prophet  Mohammed,  to  put  it  bluntly, 
had  fits ;  and  many  other  religious  reformers  suffered  in 
like  manner.    One  cannot  tell  what  hallucinations  and 


142     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


strange  manifestations  were  experienced  by  Csesar  under 
the  influence  of  this  malady ;  but  one  may  be  sure  that 
to  Cleopatra  they  were  clear  indications  of  his  close 
relationship  to  the  gods,  and  that  in  explanation  she 
did  not  fail  to  remind  him  both  of  his  divine  descent 
and  her  own  inherited  divinity,  in  which,  as  her  consort, 
he  participated. 

Towards  the  end  of  September  Caesar  caused  a  sensa- 
tion in  Rome  by  an  act  which  shows  clearly  enough  his 
attitude  in  this  regard.  He  consecrated  a  magnificent 
temple  in  honour  of  Venus  Genetrix,  his  divine  ances- 
tress ;  and  there,  in  the  splendour  of  its  marble  sanctuary, 
he  placed  a  statue  of  Cleopatra,  which  had  been  executed 
during  the  previous  weeks  by  the  famous  Roman  sculptor, 
Archesilaus.^  The  significance  of  this  act  has  been  over- 
looked by  modern  historians.  In  placing  in  this  shrine 
of  Venus,  at  the  time  of  its  inauguration,  a  figure  of  the 
Queen  of  Egypt,  who  in  her  own  country  was  the  repre- 
sentative of  Isis-Aphrodite  upon  earth,'^  Caesar  was  de- 
monstrating the  divinity  of  Cleopatra,  and  was  telling  the 
people,  as  it  were  in  everlasting  phrases  of  stone,  that  the 
royal  girl  who  now  honoured  his  villa  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tiber  was  no  less  than  a  manifestation  of  Venus  herself. 
It  will  presently  be  seen  how,  in  after  years,  Cleopatra 
went  to  meet  Antony  decked  in  the  character  of  Venus, 
and  how  she  was  then  and  on  other  occasions  hailed  by 
the  crowd  as  the  goddess  come  down  to  earth ;  and  we 
shall  see  how  her  mausoleum  actually  formed  part  of  the 
temple  of  that  goddess.  Both  at  this  date  and  in  later 
times  she  was  identified  indiscriminately  with  Isis,  with 

'  I  think  this  fact  may  be  regarded  as  an  argument  in  favour  of  the  opinion 
that  Cleopatra  had  been  in  Rome  already  several  weeks. 
^  Venus  and  Isis  were  identified  in  Rome  also. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  143 


Venus-Hathor,  and  with  Venus-Aphrodite  ;  and  even 
after  her  death  the  tradition  so  far  survived  that  one  of 
her  famous  pearl  earrings  was  cut  into  two  parts,  and,  in 
this  form,  ultimately  ornamented  the  ears  of  the  statue  of 
Venus  in  the  Pantheon  at  Rome.  Coins  dating  from  this 
period  have  been  found  upon  which  Cleopatra  is  repre- 
sented as  Aphrodite,  carrying  in  her  arms  the  baby 
Cassarion,  who  is  supposed  to  be  Eros.  Caesar  was 
always  boasting  about  the  connection  of  his  house  with 
this  goddess ;  and  now  the  placing  of  this  statue  of 
Cleopatra  in  his  new  temple  is,  I  think,  to  be  interpreted 
as  signifying  that  he  wished  the  Roman  people  to  regard 
the  Queen  as  a  "young  goddess,"  which  was  the  title 
given  to  her  by  the  Greeks  and  Egyptians  in  her  own 
country. 

It  is  not  altogether  certain  that  Caesar  himself  was 
actually  beginning  to  regard  Cleopatra  in  this  light, 
though  the  increasing  frequency  of  his  epileptic  attacks, 
and  his  consequent  hallucinations,  may  have  now  made 
such  an  attitude  possible  even  in  the  case  of  so  hardened 
a  sceptic  as  was  the  Dictator  in  former  years.  It  seems 
more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  was  at  this  time 
attempting  to  appeal  to  the  imagination  of  the  people  in 
anticipation  of  the  great  coup  which  he  was  about  to 
execute;  and  that,  with  this  object  in  view,  he  allowed 
himself  to  be  carried  along  by  a  kind  of  enthusiastic  self- 
deception.  He  applied  no  serious  analysis  to  his  opinions 
in  this  regard ;  but,  by  means  of  a  thoughtless  vanity,  he 
seems  to  have  given  rein  to  an  undefined  conviction,  very  > 
suitable  to  his  great  purpose,  that  he  himself  was  more 
than  human,  and  that  Cleopatra  was  not  altogether  a 
woman  of  mortal  flesh  and  blood.  Even  so  Alexander 
the  Great  had  partially  deluded  himself  when,  on  the 


144     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


one  hand,  he  named  himself  the  son  of  Jupiter-Ammon, 
and,  on  the  other,  was  careful,  once  when  wounded,  to 
point  out  that  ordinary  mortal  blood  flowed  from  his 
veins.  And  so,  too,  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  during  his 
invasion  of  Egypt,  declared  that  he  was  the  Prophet  of 
God,  and,  in  after  years,  was  willing  to  describe  to  a 
friend,  as  it  were  in  jest,  his  vision  of  himself  as  the 
founder  of  a  new  Faith. 

The  inauguration  of  Caesar's  new  temple,  which  was, 
one  may  say,  the  shrine  of  Cleopatra,  was  accompanied 
by  amazing  festivities,  and  the  excitable  population  of 
this  great  city  seemed,  so  to  speak,  to  go  mad  with 
enthusiasm.  Great  gladiatorial  shows  were  organised, 
and  a  miniature  sea-fight  upon  an  artificial  lake  was 
enacted  for  the  public  entertainment.  The  majority  of 
the  mob  was  ready  enough  to  accept  without  comment 
the  exalted  position  of  the  statue  of  Cleopatra.  At  this 
time  in  Rome  they  were  very  partial  to  new  and  foreign 
deities,  celestial  or  in  the  flesh  ;  and  actually  the  worship 
of  the  Egyptian  goddess  Isis,  with  whom  Cleopatra,  as 
Venus,  was  so  closely  connected,  had  taken  firm  hold  of 
their  imagination.  For  the  last  few  years  the  religion 
of  Isis  had  been  extremely  popular  with  the  lower  classes 
in  Rome ;  and  when,  in  B.C.  58,  a  law  which  had  been 
made  forbidding  foreign  temples  to  be  located  within  a 
certain  area  of  the  city,  necessitated  the  destruction  of 
a  temple  of  Isis,  not  one  man  could  be  found  who  would 
touch  the  sacred  building,  and  at  last  the  Consul,  Lucius 
PauUus,  was  obliged  to  tuck  up  his  toga  and  set  to  work 
upon  the  demolition  of  the  edifice  with  his  own  hands. 
Thus,  this  inaugural  ceremony,  so  lavishly  organised  by 
Caesar,  was  a  marked  success ;  and  in  spite  of  the 
indignation  of  Cicero,  the  statue  of  Cleopatra  took  its 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  145 


permanent  place,  with  popular  consent,  in  the  sanctuary 
of  Venus.    No  expense  was  spared  on  this  or  on  any 
other  occasion  to  please  the  people ;  and  at  one  time 
twenty-two  thousand  persons  partook  of  a  sumptuous 
meal  at  Caesar's  expense.    Such  a  courting  of  the  people 
was,  indeed,  necessary  at  this  time ;  for  although  the 
Dictator  was  at  the  moment  practically  omnipotent,  and 
though  there  was  talk  of  securing  him  in  his  office  for  a 
term  of  ten  years,  his  party  had  not  that  solidity  which 
was  to  be  desired  of  it.    Antony,  the  right-hand  man  of 
the  Csesarians,  was,  at  the  time,  in  some  disgrace  owing 
to  a  quarrel  with  his  master ;  and  there  were  rumours  that 
he  wished  to  revenge  himself  by  assassinating  Caesar.  It 
was  already  becoming  clear  that  the  Pompeian  party,  in 
spite  of  Pharsalia  and  Thapsus,  was  not  yet  dead,  and 
still  waited  to  receive  its  death-blow.     Some  of  the 
Dictator's  actions  had  given  considerable  offence,  and 
there  were  certain  people  in  Rome  who  made  use  of 
every  opportunity  to  denounce  him,  and  to  offer  their 
praise  to  the  memory  of  his  enemy  Cato,  whose  tragic 
death  after  the  battle  of  Thapsus,  and  the  vilification  of 
whose  memory  in  the  recent  Triumph,  had  caused  such 
a  painful  impression.    Cicero  wrote  an  encomium  upon 
this  unfortunate  man,  to  which  Caesar,  in  self-defence, 
replied  by  publishing  his  Anti-Cato,  which  was  marked 
by  a  tone  of  bitter  and  even  venomous  animosity.  All 
manner  of  unpleasant  remarks  were  being  made  in  better- 
class  circles  in  regard  to  Cleopatra;  and  when  the 
Dictator  publicly  admitted  the  parentage  of  their  child, 
and  authorised  him  to  bear  the  name  of  Caesar,  it  began 
to  be  whispered  that  his  legal  marriage  to  the  Queen  was 
imminent. 

The  mixed  population  of  Rome  delighted  in  political 

K 


146     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 

strife,  and  though  Caesar's  position  seemed  unassailable, 
there  were  always  large  numbers  of  persons  ready  to 
make  sporadic  attacks  upon  it.  There  was  at  this  time 
constant  rioting  in  the  Forum,  and  an  almost  continuous 
restlessness  was  to  be  observed  in  the  streets  and  public 
places.  In  the  theatres  topical  allusions  were  received 
with  frantic  applause ;  ^  and  even  in  the  Senate  disturb- 
ances were  not  infrequent.  The  people  had  always  to  be 
humoured,  and  Caesar  was  obliged  at  all  times  to  play  to 
the  gallery.  Fortunately  for  him  he  possessed  in  the 
highest  degree  the  art  of  self-advertisement ;  ^  and  his 
charm  of  manner,  together  with  his  striking  and  hand- 
some appearance,  made  the  desired  appeal  to  the  popu- 
lar fancy.  His  relationship  to  Cleopatra  stood,  on  the 
whole,  in  his  favour  amongst  the  lower  classes,  who  had 
hailed  him  with  coarse  delight  as  the  terror  of  the  women 
of  Gaul ;  and  the  fact  that  she  was  a  foreigner  mattered 
not  in  the  least  to  the  heterogeneous  population  of 
Rome.  They  themselves  were  largely  a  composition  of 
the  nations  of  the  earth ;  and  that  Caesar's  mistress,  and 
probable  future  wife,  was  a  Greek,  was  to  them  in  no  wise 
a  matter  for  comment.  In  any  theatre  in  Rome  at  that 
date  one  might  sit  amidst  an  audience  of  foreigners  to 
hear  a  drama  given  (at  Caesar's  expense,  by  the  way)  in 
language  such  as  Greek,  Phoenician,  Hebrew,  Syrian,  or 
Spanish.  To  them  Cleopatra  must  have  appeared  as  a 
wonderful  woman,  closely  related  to  the  gods,  come  from 
a  famous  city  across  the  waters  to  enjoy  the  society  of 
their  own  half-godlike  Dictator;  and  they  were  quite 

^  As,  for  example,  when  the  actor  Diphilus  alluded  to  Pompey  in  the  words 
"Nostra  miseria  tu  es — Magnus"  (Cicero,  Ad  Att.  ii.  19). 
^  I  use  the  words  of  Oman. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  147 


prepared  to  accept  her  as  a  pleasant  and  romantic  adjunct 
to  the  poHtical  situation. 

Among  the  many  reforms  which  Caesar  now  intro- 
duced there  was  one  which  was  the  direct  outcome  of 
his  visit  to  Egypt.  For  some  time  the  irregularities 
of  the  calendar  had  been  causing  much  inconvenience, 
and  the  Dictator,  very  probably  at  the  Queen  of  Egypt's 
suggestion,  now  decided  to  invite  some  of  Cleopatra's 
court  astronomers  to  Rome  in  order  that  they  might 
establish  a  new  system  based  upon  the  Egyptian  calendar 
of  Eudoxus.  Sosigenes  was  at  that  time  the  most  cele- 
brated astronomer  in  Alexandria,  and  it  was  to  him, 
perhaps  at  Cleopatra's  advice,  that  Caesar  now  turned. 
After  very  careful  study  it  was  decided  that  the  present 
year,  B.C.  46,  should  be  extended  to  fifteen  months,  or 
445  days,  in  order  that  the  nominal  date  might  be 
brought  round  to  correspond  with  the  actual  season. 
The  so-called  Julian  calendar,  which  was  thus  established, 
is  that  upon  which  our  present  system  is  based;  and 
it  is  not  without  interest  to  recollect  that  but  for 
Cleopatra  some  entirely  different  set  of  months  would 
now  be  used  throughout  the  world. 

Caesar's  mind  at  this  time  was  full  of  his  plans  for  the 
conquest  of  the  East.  In  B.C.  65  Pompey  had  brought 
to  Rome  many  details  regarding  the  overland  route  to 
the  Orient.  This  route  started  from  the  Port  of  Phasis 
on  the  Black  Sea,  ascended  the  river  of  that  name  to  its 
source  in  Iberia,  passed  over  to  the  valley  of  the  river 
Cyrus  (Kur),  and  so  came  to  the  coast  of  the  Caspian 
Sea.  Crossing  the  water  the  route  thence  led  along  the 
river  Oxus,  which  at  that  time  flowed  into  the  Caspian, 
to  its  source,  and  thus  through  Cashmir  into  India. 


148     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


There  must  then  have  been  some  talk  of  carrying  the 
eagles  along  this  highway  to  the  Orient ;  and  while 
Caesar  was  in  Egypt  it  seems  probable,  as  we  have  seen, 
that  he  had  studied  the  question  of  leading  Roman  arms 
thither  by  the  great  Egyptian  trade  route.  Though  this 
latter  road  to  the  wonderful  Orient,  however,  must  have 
seemed  to  him,  after  consideration,  to  be  very  suitable  as 
a  channel  for  the  despatch  of  reinforcements,  he  appears 
to  have  favoured  the  land  route  across  Asia  for  his 
original  invasion.  This  approach  to  the  East  was 
blocked  by  the  Parthians,  and  Caesar  now  announced 
his  intention  of  conducting  a  campaign  against  these 
people.  There  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  he  desired 
to  follow  Alexander's  steps  beyond  Parthia  into  India, 
but  I  am  of  opinion  that  such  was  his  intention.  In 
view  of  the  facts  that  the  exploits  of  Alexander  the  Great 
had  been  studied  by  him,  that  he  publicly  declared  his 
wish  to  rival  them,  that  he  must  have  heard  from  Pompey 
of  the  overland  route  to  India  with  which  the  Romans 
had  become  acquainted  during  the  war  against  Mithri- 
dates,  that  his  love  of  distant  conquest  and  exploration 
was  inordinate,  that  he  had  spent  some  months  in 
studying  conditions  in  Egypt — a  country  which  was  in 
those  days  full  of  talk  of  India  and  of  the  new  trade  with 
the  Orient,  that  after  leaving  Egypt  he  began  at  once  to 
prepare  for  a  campaign  against  the  one  nation  which 
obstructed  the  overland  route  to  the  East,  that  no  other 
part  of  the  known  world,  save  poverty-stricken  Germania, 
remained  to  be  brought  by  conquest  under  Roman  sway, 
that  India  offered  possibilities  of  untold  wealth,  and  that 
Cleopatra  herself  ultimately  made  an  attempt  to  reach 
those  far  countries, — the  inference  seems  to  me  to  be 
clear  that  Caesar's  designs  upon  Parthia  were  only 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  149 


preliminary  to  a  contemplated  invasion  of  the  East. 
The  riches  of  those  distant  lands  were  already  the  talk 
of  the  age,  and  within  the  lifetime  of  young  men  of 
this  period  streams  of  Indian  merchandise,  comprising 
diamonds,  precious  stones,  silks,  spices,  and  scents, 
began  to  pour  into  Rome  and  were  sold  each  year, 
according  to  the  somewhat  exaggerated  account  of  Pliny, 
for  some  forty  million  pounds  sterling.^  Could  Caesar, 
the  world's  greatest  spendthrift,  the  world's  most  eager 
plunderer,  have  resisted  the  temptation  of  making  a  bid 
for  the  loot  which  lay  behind  Parthia  ?  Does  the  fact 
that  he  said  nothing  of  such  an  intention  preclude  the 
possibility  that  thoughts  of  this  kind  now  filled  his  mind, 
and  formed  a  topic  of  conversation  between  him  and  the 
adventurous  Cleopatra,  the  Ruler  of  the  gateway  of  the 
Orient,  who  herself  sent  Caesar's  son  to  India,  as  we 
shall  see  in  due  course  ?  Napoleon,  when  he  invaded 
Egypt  in  1798,  said  very  little  about  his  contemplated 
attack  upon  India ;  but  it  was  none  the  less  dominant 
in  his  mind  for  that.  Egypt  and  Parthia  in  conjunction 
formed  the  basis  of  any  attempt  to  capture  the  Orient : 
Egypt  with  its  route  across  the  seas,  and  Parthia  with  its 
highroad  overland.  Are  we  really  to  suppose  that  Caesar 
did  waste  his  time  in  Egypt,  or  was  he  then  studying  the 
same  problem  which  now  directed  his  attention  to 
Parthia?  By  means  of  his  partnership  with  Cleopatra 
he  had  secured  one  of  the  routes  to  India ;  and  the 
merchants  of  Alexandria,  if  not  his  own  great  imagina- 
tion, must  have  made  clear  to  him  the  value  of  his 
possession  in  that  regard  ;  for  ever  since  the  discovery 

'  Pliny  (vi.  26)  says  that  some  ;£400,ocxD  in  money  was  conveyed  to  India 
each  year  in  exchange  for  goods  which  were  sold  for  one  hundred  times  that 
amount. 


I50     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


of  the  over-sea  route  to  the  East  that  value  has  been 
recognised.  The  Venetian  Sanuto  in  later  years  told  his 
compatriots  of  the  effect  on  India  v^^hich  would  follow 
from  the  conquest  of  the  Nile  Valley ;  the  Comte  Daru 
said  that  the  possession  of  Egypt  meant  the  opening  up 
of  India;  Leibnitz  told  Louis  XIV.  of  France  that  an 
invasion  of  Egypt  would  result  in  the  capture  of  the 
Indian  highroad  ;  the  Due  de  Choiseul  made  a  similar 
declaration  to  Louis  XV. ;  Napoleon  stated  in  his 
'  Memoirs '  that  his  object  in  attacking  Egypt  was  to 
lead  an  army  of  60,000  men  to  India ;  and  at  the  present 
day  England  holds  the  Nile  Valley  as  being  the  gateway 
of  her  distant  possessions.  On  the  other  side  of  the 
picture  we  see  at  the  present  time  the  attempts  of 
Russia  to  establish  her  power  in  Northern  Persia  and 
Afghanistan,  where  once  the  Parthians  of  old  held  sway, 
in  order  to  be  ready  for  that  day  when  English  power 
in  India  shall  decline.  Was  Caesar,  then,  straining  every 
nerve  only  for  the  possession  of  the  two  gateways  of  the 
Orient,  or  did  his  gaze  penetrate  through  those  gateways 
to  the  vast  wealth  of  the  kingdoms  beyond  ?  I  am 
disposed  to  see  him  walking  with  Cleopatra  in  the  gar- 
dens of  the  villa  by  the  Tiber,  just  as  Napoleon  paced 
the  parks  of  Passeriano,  "  frequently  betraying  by  his 
exclamations  the  gigantic  thoughts  of  his  unlimited 
ambition,"  as  Lacroix  tells  us  of  the  French  conqueror. 

Such  dreams,  however,  were  rudely  interrupted  by  the 
news  that  the  Pompeian  party  had  gathered  its  forces  in 
Spain ;  and  Cassar  was  obliged  to  turn  his  attention  to 
that  part  of  the  world.  In  the  winter  of  B.C.  46,  there- 
fore, he  set  out  for  the  south-west,  impatient  at  the  delay 
which  the  new  campaign  necessitated  in  his  great 
schemes.    He  was  in  no  mood  to  brook  any  opposition 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  151 


in  Rome,  and  before  leaving  the  capital  he  arranged  that  , 
he  should  be  made  Consul  without  a  colleague  for  the 
ensuing  year  B.C.  45,  as  well  as  Dictator,  thus  giving 
himself  absolutely  autocratic  power.  On  his  way  to 
Spain  he  sent  a  despatch  to  Rome,  appointed  eight 
praefecti  urbi  with  full  powers  to  act  in  his  name,  thus 
establishing  a  form  of  cabinet  government  which  should 
entirely  over-ride  the  wishes  of  the  Senate  and  of  the 
people ;  and  in  this  manner  he  secured  the  political 
situation  to  his  own  advantage.  Naturally  there  was  a 
very  great  outcry  against  this  high-handed  action ;  but 
Caesar  was  far  too  deeply  occupied  by  his  vast  schemes, 
and  far  too  annoyed  by  this  Spanish  interruption  of  his 
course  towards  the  great  goal  of  his  ambitions,  to  pay 
much  attention  to  the  outraged  feelings  of  his  political 
opponents. 

The  enemy  in  Spain  were  led  by  the  two  sons  of  the 
great  Pompey,  but  at  the  battle  of  Munda,  fought  on 
March  17,  B.C.  45,  they  were  entirely  defeated  with  a  loss 
of  some  thirty  thousand  men.  The  elder  of  the  two 
leaders,  Cnseus  Pompeius,  who  was  said  to  have  once 
been  a  suitor  for  Cleopatra's  heart,  was  killed  shortly 
after  the  battle,  but  the  younger,  Sextus,  escaped.  Caesar 
then  returned  to  Rome,  being  met  outside  the  capital  by 
Antony,  with  whom  he  was  reconciled ;  and  in  the  early 
summer  he  celebrated  his  Triumph.  In  this  he  offended 
a  number  of  persons,  owing  to  the  fact  that  his  victory 
had  been  won  over  his  fellow-countrymen,  whose  defeat, 
therefore,  ought  not  to  have  been  the  cause  of  more  than 
a  silent  satisfaction.  After  Pharsalia  Caesar  had  cele- 
brated no  triumph,  since  Romans  had  there  fought 
Romans  ;  and,  indeed,  as  Plutarch  says,  "  he  had  seemed 
rather  to  be  ashamed  of  the  action  than  to  expect  honour 


152     LIFE  AND  TLMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


from  it."  But  now  he  had  come  to  feel  that  he  himself 
was  Rome,  and  that  his  enemies  were  not  simply  opposed 
to  his  party  but  were  in  arms  against  the  State. 

Knowing  now  that  the  Pompeians  were  at  last  crushed, 
Caesar  decided  to  attempt  to  appease  any  ill-feeling 
directed  against  himself  by  the  friends  of  the  fallen 
party ;  and  for  this  purpose  he  caused  the  statues  of 
Pompey  the  Great,  which  had  been  removed  from  their 
pedestals,  to  be  replaced ;  and  furthermore,  he  pardoned, 
and  even  gave  office  to,  several  leaders  of  the  Pompeian 
party,  notably  to  Brutus  and  Cassius,  who  afterwards 
were  ranked  amongst  his  murderers.  He  then  settled 
down  in  Rome  to  prepare  for  his  campaign  in  the  East, 
and,  in  the  meantime,  to  put  into  execution  the  many 
administrative  reforms  which  were  maturing  in  his  rest- 
less brain.  It  appears  that  he  lived  for  the  most  part  of 
this  time  in  the  house  of  which  his  wife  Calpurnia  was 
mistress;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  he  was  a 
constant  visitor  at  his  transpontine  villa,  and  that  he 
spent  all  his  spare  hours  there  in  the  society  of  Cleopatra, 
who  remained  in  Rome  until  his  death. 


153 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THE  EGYPTO-ROMAN  MONARCHY, 

The  people  of  Rome  now  began  to  heap  honours  upon 
Caesar,  and  the  government  which  he  had  established  did 
not  fail  to  justify  its  existence  by  voting  him  to  a  position 
of  irrevocable  power.  He  was  made  Consul  for  ten  years, 
and  there  was  talk  of  decreeing  him  Dictator  for  life. 
The  Senate  became  simply  an  instrument  for  the  execu- 
tion of  his  commands ;  and  so  little  did  the  members 
concern  themselves  with  the  framing  of  new  laws  at 
home,  or  with  the  details  of  foreign  administration,  that 
Cicero  is  able  to  complain  that  in  his  official  capacity  he 
had  received  the  thanks  of  Oriental  potentates  whose 
names  he  had  never  seen  before,  for  their  elevation  to 
thrones  of  kingdoms  of  which  he  had  never  heard. 
Caesar's  interests  were  world-wide,  and  the  Government 
in  Rome  carried  out  his  wishes  in  the  manner  in  which 
an  ignorant  Board  of  Directors  of  a  company  with  foreign 
interests  follows  the  advice  of  its  travelling  manager. 
He  had  lived  for  such  long  periods  in  foreign  countries, 
his  campaigns  had  carried  him  over  so  much  of  the 
known  world's  surface,  that  Rome  appeared  to  him  to  be 
nothing  more  than  the  headquarters  of  his  administration, 
and  not  a  very  convenient  centre  at  that.    His  intimacy 


154     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


with  Cleopatra,  moreover,  had  widened  his  outlook,  s.nd 
had  very  materially  assisted  him  to  become  an  arbiter  of 
universal  interests.  Distant  cities,  such  as  Alexandria, 
were  no  longer  to  him  the  capitals  of  foreign  lands,  but 
were  the  seats  of  local  governments  within  his  own 
dominions ;  and  the  throne  towards  which  he  was  climb- 
ing was  set  at  an  elevation  from  which  the  nations  of 
the  whole  earth  could  be  observed. 

In  accepting  as  his  own  business  the  concerns  of  so 
many  lands,  he  was  assuming  responsibilities  the  weight 
of  which  no  man  could  bear ;  yet  his  dislike  of  receiv- 
ing advice,  and  his  uncontrolled  vanity,  led  him  to 
resent  all  interference,  nor  would  he  admit  that  the 
strain  was  too  great  for  his  weakened  physique.  In- 
timate friends  of  the  Dictator,  such  as  Balbus  and 
Oppius,  observed  that  he  was  daily  growing  more  irrit- 
able, more  self-opinionated ;  and  the  least  suggestion  of 
a  decentralisation  of  his  powers  caused  him  increasing 
annoyance.  He  wished  always  to  hold  the  threads  of 
the  entire  world's  concerns  in  his  own  hands.  Now  he 
was  discussing  the  future  of  North  African  Carthage 
and  of  Grecian  Corinth,  to  which  places  he  desired  to 
send  out  Roman  colonists ;  now  he  was  regulating  the 
affairs  of  Syria  and  Asia  Minor;  and  now  he  was 
absorbed  in  the  agrarian  problems  of  Italy.  There  were 
times  when  the  weight  of  universal  affairs  pressed  so 
heavily  upon  him  that  he  would  exclaim  that  he  had 
lived  long  enough ;  and  in  such  moods,  when  his  friends 
warned  him  of  the  possibility  of  his  assassination,  he 
would  reply  that  death  was  not  such  a  terrible  matter, 
nor  a  disaster  which  could  come  to  him  more  than 
once.  The  frequency  of  his  epileptic  seizures  was  a 
cause  of  constant  distress  to  him,  and  his  gaunt,  almost 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  155 


haggard,  appearance  must  have  indicated  to  his  friends 
that  the  strain  was  becoming  unbearable.  Yet  ever  his 
ambitions  held  him  to  his  self-imposed  task ;  and  always 
his  piercing  eyes  were  set  upon  that  goal  of  all  his 
schemes,  the  monarchy  of  the  earth. 

People  were  now  beginning  to  discuss  openly  the 
subject  of  his  elevation  to  the  throne.  It  was  freely 
stated  that  he  proposed  to  make  himself  King  and 
Cleopatra  Queen,  and,  further,  that  he  intended  to 
transfer  the  seat  of  his  government  to  Alexandria,  or 
some  other  eastern  city.  The  site  of  Rome  was  not 
ideal.  It  was  too  far  from  the  sea  ever  to  be  a  first- 
rate  centre  of  commerce ;  nor  had  it  any  natural 
sources  of  wealth  in  the  neighbourhood.  The  streets, 
which  were  narrow  and  crookedly  built,  were  liable  to 
be  flooded  at  certain  seasons  by  the  swift-flowing  Tiber. ^ 
Pestilence  and  sickness  were  rife  amongst  the  congested 
quarters  of  the  city;  and  in  the  middle  ages,  as  Mommsen 
has  pointed  out,  "  one  German  army  after  another  melted 
away  under  its  walls  and  left  it  mysteriously  victorious." 
After  the  battle  of  Actium,  Augustus  wished  to  change 
the  capital  to  some  other  quarter  of  the  globe,  as,  for 
example,  to  Byzantium ;  and  it  is  very  possible  that 
the  idea  originated  with  Caesar.  At  the  period 
with  which  we  are  now  dealing  Rome  was  far  less 
magnificent  than  it  became  a  few  years  later,  and  it 
must  have  compared  unfavourably  with  Alexandria  and 
other  cities.  Its  streets  ascended  and  descended, 
twisted  this  way  and  that,  in  an  amazing  manner ;  and 
so  narrow  were  they  that  Caesar  was  obliged  to  pass  a 
law  prohibiting  waggons  from  being  driven  along  them 
in  the  daytime,  all  porterage  being  performed  by  men 

'  Horace,  Od.  I,  2. 


156     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


or  beasts  of  burden.  The  great  public  buildings 
and  palaces  of  the  rich  rose  from  amidst  the  en- 
croaching jumble  of  small  houses  like  exotic  plants 
hemmed  in  by  a  mass  of  overgrown  weeds ;  and  Caesar 
must  often  have  given  envious  thought  to  Alex- 
andria with  its  great  Street  of  Canopus  and  its  Royal 
Area. 

Those  who  study  the  lives  of  Cleopatra  and  Caesar 
in  conjunction  cannot  fail  to  ask  themselves  how  far 
the  Queen  influenced  the  Dictator's  thoughts  at  this 
time.  During  these  last  years  of  his  life  —  the  years 
which  mark  his  greatness  and  give  him  his  unique 
place  in  history  —  Cleopatra  was  living  in  the  closest 
intimacy  with  him ;  and,  so  far  as  we  know,  there  was 
not  another  man  or  woman  in  the  world  who  had  such 
ample  opportunities  for  playing  an  influential  part  in 
his  career.  If  Cleopatra  was  interested,  as  we  know 
she  was,  in  the  welfare  of  her  country  and  her  royal 
house,  or  in  the  career  of  herself  and  Caesar,  or  in  the 
destiny  of  their  son,  it  is  palpably  impossible  to  sup- 
pose that  she  did  not  discuss  matters  of  statecraft  with 
the  man  who  was,  in  all  but  name,  her  husband.  At 
a  future  date  Cleopatra  was  strong  enough  to  play  one 
of  the  big  political  roles  in  history,  dealing  with  king- 
doms and  armies  as  the  ordinary  woman  deals  with 
a  house  and  servants ;  and  in  the  light  of  the  know- 
ledge of  her  character  as  it  is  unfolded  to  us  in  the 
years  after  the  Dictator's  death,  it  is  not  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  in  Rome  she  kept  aloof  from  all  his 
schemes  and  plans,  deeming  herself  capable  of  holding 
the  attention  of  the  master  of  the  world's  activities  by 
the  entertainments  of  the  boudoir  and  the  arts  of  the 
bedchamber.    Her  individuality  does  not  dominate  the 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  157 


last  years  of  the  Roman  Republic,  merely  because  of 
the  profligacy  of  her  life  with  Antony  and  the  tragedy 
of  their  death,  but  because  her  personality  was  so  irre- 
sistible that  it  influenced  in  no  small  degree  the  affairs 
of  the  world.  I  am  of  opinion  that  Cleopatra's  name 
would  have  been  stamped  upon  the  history  of  this 
period  even  though  the  events  which  culminated  at 
Actium  had  never  occurred.  The  romantic  tragedy  of 
her  connection  with  Antony  has  captured  the  popular 
taste,  and  has  diverted  the  attention  of  historians  from 
the  facts  of  her  earlier  years.  There  is  a  tendency 
completely  to  overlook  the  influence  which  she  exer- 
cised in  the  politics  of  Rome  during  the  last  years  of 
Caesar's  life.^  The  eyes  of  historians  are  concentrated 
upon  the  Alexandrian  drama,  and  the  tale  of  Cleopatra's 
life  in  the  Dictator's  villa  is  overlooked.  Yet  who  will 
be  so  bold  as  to  state  that  a  Queen,  whose  fortunes  were 
linked  by  Caesar  with  his  own  at  the  height  of  his 
power,  left  no  mark  upon  the  events  of  that  time  ? 
When  Cleopatra  came  to  Rome  her  outlook  upon  life 
must  have  been  in  striking  contrast  to  that  of  the 
Romans.  The  republic  was  still  the  accepted  form  of 
government,  and  as  yet  there  was  no  definite  movement 
towards  monarchism.  The  hereditary  emperors  of  the 
future  were  hardly  dreamed  of,  and  the  kings  of  the 
far  past  were  nigh  forgotten.  Now,  although  it  may 
be  supposed  that  Cleopatra,  by  contact  with  the  world, 
had  adopted  a  moderately  rational  view  of  her  status, 
yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  sense  of  her  royal 

^  Ferrero  writes  :  "  The  Queen  of  Egypt  plays  a  strange  and  significant 
part  in  the  tragedy  of  the  Roman  Republic.  .  .  .  She  desired  to  become 
Ccesar's  wife,  and  she  hoped  to  awaken  in  him  the  passion  for  kingship. " 
But  this  is  a  passing  comment. 


158     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


and  divine  personality  was  far  from  dormant  in  her. 
Her  education  and  upbringing,  as  I  have  already  said, 
and  now  the  adulation  of  Caesar,  must  have  influenced 
her  mind,  so  that  the  knowledge  of  her  royalty  was  at 
all  times  almost  her  predominant  characteristic ;  and  it 
would  be  strange  indeed  if  the  Dictator's  thoughts  had 
been  proof  against  the  insinuating  influence  of  this 
atmosphere  in  which  he  chose  to  spend  a  great  portion 
of  his  time.  Did  Rome  herself  supply  Caesar's  stimulus, 
Rome  which  had  not  known  monarchy  for  four  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ?  But  admitting  that  Rome  was  ripe  for 
monarchy,  and  that  circumstances  to  some  extent  forced 
Cssar  towards  that  form  of  government,  can  we  declare 
that  the  Dictator  would,  of  his  own  accord,  have  em- 
braced sovereignty  and  even  divinity  so  rapidly  had  his 
consort  not  been  a  Queen  and  a  goddess  ? 

During  the  last  months  of  his  life — namely,  from  his 
return  to  Rome  in  the  early  summer  after  the  Spanish 
campaign  to  his  assassination  in  the  following  March — 
Caesar  vigorously  pressed  forward  his  schemes  in  regard 
to  the  monarchy.  Originally,  it  would  seem,  he  had 
intended  to  complete  his  eastern  conquests  before  mak- 
ing any  attempt  to  obtain  the  throne ;  but  now  the 
long  delay  in  his  preparations  for  the  Parthian  cam- 
paign had  produced  a  feeling  of  impatience  which 
could  no  longer  be  controlled.  Moreover,  his  attention 
had  been  called  to  an  old  prophecy  which  stated  that 
the  Parthians  would  not  be  conquered  until  a  King  of 
Rome  made  war  upon  them ;  and  Caesar  was  sufficiently 
acute,  if  not  sufficiently  superstitious,  to  be  influenced 
to  an  appreciable  extent  by  such  a  declaration.  Little 
by  little,  therefore,  he  assumed  the  prerogatives  of  king- 
ship, daily  adding  to  the  royal  character  of  his  appear- 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  159 


ance,  and  daily  assuming  more  autocratic  and  mon- 
archical powers. 

It  was  not  long  before  he  caused  himself  to  be  given 
the  hereditary  title  of  Imperator,  a  word  which  meant 
at  that  time  "  Commander-in-chief,"  and  had  no  royal 
significance,  though  the  fact  that  it  was  made  hereditary 
gave  it  a  new  significance.  It  is  to  be  observed  that 
the  persons  who  framed  the  decree  must  have  realised 
that  the  son  to  whom  the  title  would  descend  would 
probably  be  that  baby  Caesar  who  now  ruled  the 
nurseries  of  the  villa  beside  the  Tiber;  for  there  can 
be  little  doubt  that  the  Dictator's  legitimate  marriage 
to  Cleopatra  at  the  first  opportune  moment  was  con- 
fidently expected  by  his  supporters ;  and  we  are  thus 
presented  with  the  novel  spectacle  of  enthusiastic  Roman 
statesmen  offering  the  hereditary  office  of  Imperator  to 
the  future  King  of  Egypt.  There  can  surely  be  no 
clearer  indication  than  this  that  the  people  of  Rome 
took  no  exception  to  Cleopatra's  foreign  blood, ^  nor 
thought  of  her  in  any  way  as  an  Oriental.  The  atti- 
tude of  the  majority  of  modern  historians  suggests  that 
they  picture  the  Dictator  at  this  time  as  living  with 
some  sort  of  African  woman  whom  he  had  brought  back 
with  him  from  Egypt ;  but  I  must  repeat  that  I  am 
convinced  that  in  actual  fact  the  Romans  regarded 
Cleopatra  as  a  royal  Greek  lady  whose  capital  city  of 
Alexandria  was  the  rival  of  the  Eternal  City  in  wealth, 
magnificence,  and  culture,  bearing  to  Rome,  to  some 
extent,   the   relationship  which   New  York   bears  to 

^  No  Englishman  is  troubled  by  the  knowledge  that  the  mother  of  his  king 
is  a  Dane,  and  no  Spaniard  is  worried  by  the  thought  that  his  sovereign  has 
married  an  Englishwoman.  The  kinship  between  Roman  and  Greek  was  as 
close  as  these. 


i6o     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


London.  It  was  rumoured  at  this  time  that  a  law 
was  about  to  be  introduced  by  one  of  the  tribunes  of 
the  people  which  would  enable  Caesar,  if  necessary,  to 
have  two  wives  —  Calpurnia  and  Cleopatra  —  and  that 
the  new  wife  need  not  be  a  Roman.  The  people  could 
have  felt  no  misgivings  at  the  thought  of  Cleopatra's 
son  being  Caesar's  heir;  for  already  they  knew  well 
enough  that  Caesar  was  to  be  King  of  Rome,  and  by 
his  marriage  with  Cleopatra  they  realised  that  he  was 
adding  to  Rome's  dominions  without  force  of  arms  the 
one  great  kingdom  of  the  civilised  world  which  was  still 
independent,  and  was  securing  for  his  heirs  upon  the 
Roman  throne  the  honourable  appendage  of  the  oldest 
crown  in  existence,  and  the  vast  fortune  which  went 
with  it.  In  later  years,  when  Cleopatra  as  the  consort 
of  Antony  had  become  a  public  enemy,  there  was  much 
talk  of  an  East-Mediterranean  peril,  and  the  Queen  came 
to  represent  Oriental  splendour  as  opposed  to  Occidental 
simplicity ;  but  at  the  time  with  which  we  are  now  deal- 
ing this  attitude  was  entirely  undeveloped,  and  Cleopatra 
was  regarded  as  the  most  suitable  mother  for  that  son 
of  Caesar  who  should  one  day  inherit  his  honours  and 
his  titles. 

At  about  this  date  the  baby  actually  became  uncrowned 
King  of  Egypt,  for  Cleopatra's  young  brother,  Ptolemy 
XV.,  mysteriously  passes  from  the  records  of  history,  and 
is  heard  of  no  more.  Whether  Cleopatra  and  Caesar 
caused  him  to  be  murdered  as  standing  in  the  way  of 
their  ambitions,  or  whether  he  died  a  natural  death,  will 
now  never  be  known.  He  comes  into  the  story  of  these 
eventful  days  like  a  shadow,  and  like  a  shadow  he  dis- 
appears; and  all  that  we  know  concerning  his  end  is 


I 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  i6i 


derived  from  Josephus/  who  states  that  he  was  poisoned 
by  his  sister.  Such  an  accusation,  however,  is  only  to  be 
expected,  and  would  certainly  have  been  made  had  the 
boy  died  of  a  sudden  illness.  It  is  therefore  not  just  to 
Cleopatra  to  burden  her  memory  with  the  crime ;  and  all 
that  one  may  now  say  is  that,  while  the  death  of  the 
unfortunate  young  King  may  be  attributed  to  Cleopatra 
without  improbability,  there  is  really  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  she  had  anything  to  do  with  it. 

Caesar  now  caused  a  statue  of  himself  to  be  erected  in 
the  Capitol  as  the  eighth  royal  figure  there,  the  previous 
seven  being  those  of  the  old  Kings  of  Rome.  Soon  he 
began  to  appear  in  public  clad  in  the  embroidered  dress 
of  the  ancient  monarchs  of  Alba  ;  and  he  caused  his  head 
to  appear  in  true  monarchical  manner  upon  the  Roman 
coins.  A  throne  of  gold  was  provided  for  him  to  sit 
upon  in  his  official  capacity  in  the  Senate  and  on  his 
tribunal ;  and  in  his  hand  he  now  carried  a  sceptre  of 
ivory,  while  upon  his  head  was  a  chaplet  of  gold  in  the 
form  of  a  laurel-wreath.  A  consecrated  chariot,  like  the 
sacred  chariot  of  the  Kings  of  Egypt,  was  provided  for 
his  conveyance  at  public  ceremonies,  and  a  kind  of  royal 
bodyguard  of  senators  and  nobles  was  offered  to  him. 
He  was  given  the  right,  moreover,  of  being  buried  inside 

^  Porphyry,  writing  several  generations  later,  states  that  he  died  by 
Cleopatra's  treacherj-  ;  but  he  is  evidently  simply  quoting  Josephus.  Porphj-ry 
says  that  he  died  in  the  eighth  year  of  Cleopatra's  reign  and  the  fourth  year 
of  his  own  reign.  This  is  confirmed  by  an  inscription  which  I  observed  in 
Prof.  Petrie's  collection  and  published  in  '  Receuil  de  Traveaux.'  This  re- 
cords an  event  which  took  place  "  In  the  ninth  year  of  the  reign  of  Cleopatra 
...  [a  lacuna]  .  .  .  Csesarion."  The  lacuna  probably  reads,  "...  and  in 
the  first  (or  second)  year  of  the  reign  of  .  .  ."  This  inscription  shows  that 
in  the  Queen's  ninth  year  Caesarion  was  already  her  consort,  which  confirms 
Porphyry's  statement, 

L 


i62     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


the  city  walls,  just  as  Alexander  the  Great  had  been 
laid  to  rest  within  the  Royal  Area  at  Alexandria.  These 
marks  of  kingship,  when  observed  in  conjunction  with 
the  hereditary  title  of  Imperator  which  had  been  conferred 
upon  him,  and  the  lifelong  Dictatorship  which  was  about 
to  be  offered  to  him,  are  indications  that  the  goal  was 
now  very  near  at  hand ;  and  both  Caesar  and  Cleopatra 
must  have  lived  at  the  time  in  a  state  of  continuous 
excitement  and  expectation.  Everybody  knew  what  was 
in  the  air,  and  Cicero  went  so  far  as  to  write  a  long  letter 
to  Caesar  urging  him  not  to  make  himself  King,  but  he 
was  advised  not  to  send  it.  The  ex -Consul  Lucius 
Aurelius  Cotta  inserted  the  thin  edge  of  the  wedge  by 
proposing  that  Caesar  should  be  made  King  of  the  Roman 
dominions  outside  Italy ;  but  the  suggestion  was  not 
taken  up  with  much  enthusiasm.  Caesar  himself  seems 
to  have  been  undecided  as  to  whether  he  should  postpone 
the  great  event  until  after  the  Parthian  war  or  not,  and 
the  settlement  of  this  question  must  have  given  rise  to 
the  most  anxious  discussions. 

There  was  no  longer  need  for  the  Dictator  to  hide 
his  intentions  with  any  great  care ;  and  as  a  preliminary 
measure  he  did  not  hesitate  to  proclaim  to  the  public 
his  belief  in  the  divinity  of  his  person.  He  caused  his 
image  to  be  carried  in  the  Pompa  circenis  amongst  those 
of  the  immortal  gods.  A  temple  dedicated  to  Jupiter- 
Julius  was  decreed,  and  a  statue  in  his  likeness  was  set 
up  in  the  temple  of  Quirinus,  inscribed  with  the  words, 
"  To  the  Immortal  God."  A  college  of  priestly  Lupcrci, 
of  whom  we  shall  presently  learn  more,  was  established 
in  his  honour ;  and  flamines  were  created  as  priests  of  his 
godhead,  an  institution  which  reminds  one  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  Pharaoh  of  Egypt  was  worshipped  by  a 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  163 


body  of  priests.  A  bed  of  state  was  provided  for  him 
within  the  chief  temples  of  Rome.  In  the  formulae 
of  the  political  oaths  in  which  Jupiter  and  the  Penates 
of  the  Roman  people  had  been  named,  the  Genius  of 
Cassar  was  now  called  upon,  just  as  in  Egypt  the  Ka,  or 
genius,  of  the  sovereign  was  invoked.  "  The  old  national 
faith,"  says  Mommsen,  "  became  the  instrument  of  a 
Caesarian  papacy "  ;  and  indeed  it  may  be  said  that  it 
became  the  instrument  actually  of  a  supreme  Caesarian 
deification. 

By  the  end  of  the  year  B.C.  45  and  the  beginning  of 
B.C.  44  there  was  no  longer  any  doubt  in  the  minds 
of  the  Roman  people  that  Caesar  intended  presently  to 
ascend  the  throne ;  and  the  only  question  asked  was  as 
to  whether  the  event  would  take  place  before  or  after 
the  Eastern  campaign.  Some  time  before  February  15th 
he  was  made  Dictator  for  life ;  and  this,  regarded  in 
conjunction  with  the  homage  now  paid  to  his  person, 
and  the  hereditary  nature  of  his  title  of  Imperator,  made 
the  margin  between  his  present  status  and  that  of  king- 
ship exceedingly  narrow.  It  is  probable  that  Caesar 
was  not  determined  to  introduce  the  old  title  of  "  King," 
although  he  affected  the  dress  and  insignia  of  those  who 
had  been  "  kings  "  of  Rome.  It  is  more  likely  that  he 
was  seeking  some  new  monarchical  title ;  and  when,  on 
one  occasion,  he  declared  "  I  am  Caesar,  and  no  *  King,'  " 
he  may  already  have  decided  to  elevate  his  personal 
name  to  the  significance  of  the  royal  title  which  it 
ultimately  became,  and  still  in  this  twentieth  century 
continues  to  be.^ 

His  arrogance  was  daily  becoming  more  pronounced, 
and  his  ambition  was  now  "swell'd  so  much  that  it  did 

^  Kaiser,  Czar,  &c. 


i64     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


almost  stretch  the  sides  o'  the  world."  ^  He  severely 
rebuked  Pontius  Aquila,  one  of  the  Tribunes,  for  not 
rising  when  he  passed  in  front  of  the  Tribunician  seats  ; 
and  for  some  time  afterwards  he  used  to  qualify  any 
declaration  which  he  made  in  casual  conversation  by 
the  sneering  words,  "  By  Pontius  Aquila's  kind  per- 
mission." Once,  when  a  deputation  of  Senators  came 
to  him  to  confer  new  honours  upon  him,  he,  on  the 
other  hand,  received  them  without  rising  from  his  seat ; 
and  he  was  now  wont  to  keep  his  closest  friends  waiting 
in  an  anteroom  for  an  audience,  a  fact  of  which  Cicero 
bitterly  complains.  When  his  authority  was  questioned 
he  invariably  lost  his  temper,  and  would  swear  in  the 
most  horrible  manner.  "  Men  ought  to  look  upon  what 
I  say  as  law,'"  he  is  reported  by  Titus  Ampius  to  have 
said;  and,  indeed,  there  were  very  few  persons  who  had 
the  hardihood  not  to  do  so.  On  a  certain  occasion  it 
was  discovered  that  some  enthusiast  had  placed  a  royal 
diadem  upon  the  head  of  one  of  his  statues,  and,  very 
correctly,  the  two  Tribunes  caused  it  to  be  removed. 
This  so  infuriated  Caesar,  who  declared  the  official  act 
to  be  a  deliberate  insult,  that  he  determined  to  punish 
the  two  men  at  the  first  convenient  opportunity.  On 
January  26th  of  the  new  year  this  opportunity  presented 
itself.  As  he  was  walking  through  the  streets  some 
persons  in  the  crowd  hailed  him  as  King,  whereupon 
these  zealous  officials  ordered  them  to  be  arrested  and 
flung  into  prison.  Cassar  at  once  raised  an  appalling 
storm,  the  result  of  which  was  that  the  two  Tribunes 
were  expelled  from  the  Senate. 

Cleopatra's  attitude  could  not  well  fail  to  be  influenced 
by  that  of  the  Dictator ;  and  it  is  probable  that  she  gave 

^  Cj  mbeline. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  165 


some  offence  by  an  occasional  haughtiness  of  manner. 
Her  Egyptian  chamberlains  and  court  officials  must 
also  have  annoyed  the  Romans  by  failing  to  disguise 
their  Alexandrian  vanity ;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  many  of  Caesar's  friends  began  to  regard  the  menage 
at  the  transpontine  villa  with  growing  dislike.  A  letter 
written  by  Cicero  to  his  friend  Atticus  is  an  interesting 
commentary  upon  the  situation.  It  seems  that  the 
great  writer  had  been  favoured  by  Cleopatra  with  the 
promise  of  a  gift  suitable  to  his  standing,  probably  in 
return  for  some  service  which  he  had  rendered  her.  "  I 
detest  the  Queen,"  he  writes,  "and  the  voucher  for  her 
promises,  Hammonios,  knows  that  I  have  good  cause 
for  saying  so.  What  she  promised,  indeed,  were  all 
things  of  the  learned  sort  and  suitable  to  my  character, 
such  as  I  could  avow  even  in  a  public  meeting.  As  for 
Sara  (pion),^  besides  finding  him  an  unprincipled  rascal, 
I  also  found  him  inclined  to  give  himself  airs  towards 
me.  I  only  saw  him  once  at  my  house;  and  when  I 
asked  him  politely  what  I  could  do  for  him,  he  said  that 
he  had  come  in  hopes  of  seeing  Atticus.  The  Queen's 
insolence,  too,  when  she  was  living  in  Caesar's  trans- 
tiberine  villa,^  I  cannot  recall  without  a  pang.  So  I  will 
not  have  anything  to  do  with  that  lot." 

The  ill-feeling  towards  Caesar,  which  was  very  decidedly 
on  the  increase,  is  sufficient  to  account  for  the  growing 
unpopularity  of  Cleopatra ;  but  it  is  possible  that  it  was 
somewhat  accentuated  by  a  slight  jealousy  which  must 
have  been  felt  by  the  Romans  owing  to  the  Dictator's 
partiality  for  things  Egyptian.    Not  only  did  it  appear 

*  Both  Hammonios  and  Sarapion  are  common  Egyptian  names. 
'■^  This  may  mean  that  Cleopatra  had  gone  to  some  other  part  of  Rome  either 
permanently  or  temporarily. 


i66     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


to  Caesar's  friends  that  he  was  modelling  his  future 
throne  upon  that  of  the  Ptolemies  and  was  asserting  his 
divinity  in  the  Ptolemaic  manner;  not  only  had  he 
been  thought  to  desire  Alexandria  as  the  capital  of  the 
Empire;  but  also  he  was  employing  large  numbers  of 
Egyptians  in  the  execution  of  his  schemes.  Egyptian 
astronomers  had  reformed  the  Roman  calendar ;  the 
Roman  mint  was  being  improved  by  Alexandrian 
coiners ;  the  whole  of  his  financial  arrangements,  it 
would  seem,  were  entrusted  to  Alexandrians;^  while 
many  of  his  public  entertainments,  as,  for  example,  the 
naval  displays  enacted  at  the  inauguration  of  the  Temple 
of  Venus,  were  conducted  by  Egyptians.  Caesar's  object 
in  thus  using  Cleopatra's  subjects  must  have  been  due, 
to  some  extent,  to  his  desire  to  familiarise  his  countrymen 
with  those  industrious  Alexandrians  who  were  to  play 
so  important  a  part  in  the  construction  of  the  new 
Roman  Empire. 

The  great  schemes  and  projects  which  were  now 
placed  before  the  Senate  by  Caesar  must  have  startled 
that  institution  very  considerably.  Almost  every  day 
some  new  proposal  was  formulated  or  some  new  law 
drafted.  At  one  time  the  diverting  of  the  Tiber  from 
its  course  occupied  the  Dictator's  attention ;  at  another 
time  he  was  arranging  to  cut  a  canal  through  the 
Isthmus  of  Corinth.  Now  he  was  planning  the  con- 
struction of  a  road  over  the  Apennines ;  and  now  he 
was  deep  in  schemes  for  the  creation  of  a  vast  port  at 
Ostia.  Plans  of  great  public  buildings  to  be  erected 
at  Alexandria  or  in  Rome  were  being  submitted  to  him ; 
or,  again,  he  was  arranging  for  the  establishment  of 
public  libraries  in  various  parts  of  the  capital.  Mean- 

^  Suetonius  :  Caesar,  76. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  167 


while  the  preparations  for  the  Parthian  war  must  have 
occupied  the  greater  part  of  his  time ;  for  the  campaign 
was  to  be  of  a  vast  character.  So  sure  was  he  that  it 
would  last  for  three  years  or  more  that  he  framed  a 
law  by  virtue  of  which  the  magistrates  and  public 
officials  for  the  next  three  years  should  be  appointed 
before  his  departure.  He  thereby  insured  the  tranquillity 
of  Rome  during  his  prolonged  absence  in  the  east,  thus 
leaving  himself  free  to  carry  his  arms  into  remote  lands 
where  communication  with  the  capital  might  be  almost 
impossible.  When  we  recollect  that  Caesar's  recent  cam- 
paigns had  all  been  of  but  a  few  months  or  weeks  dura- 
tion, and  that  the  words  ve^ti,  vidi,  vici  now  represented 
his  mature  belief  in  his  own  capabilities,  these  plans  for 
a  three  years'  absence  from  Rome  seem  to  me  to  indi- 
cate clearly  that  he  had  no  intention  of  confining  himself 
to  the  conquest  of  Parthia,  but  desired  to  follow  in 
Alexander's  footsteps  to  India,  and  thence  to  return  to 
Rome  laden  with  the  loot  of  that  vast  country.  He 
must  have  pictured  himself  entering  the  capital  at  the 
end  of  the  war  as  the  conqueror  of  the  East,  and  there 
could  have  been  no  doubt  in  his  mind  that  the  delighted 
populace  would  then  accept  with  enthusiasm  his  claim  to 
the  throne  of  the  world. 

As  the  weeks  went  by  Caesar's  plans  in  regard  to  the 
monarchy  became  more  clearly  defined.  He  does  not 
now  seem  to  have  considered  it  very  wise  to  press  for- 
ward the  assumption  of  the  sovereignty  previous  to  the 
Parthian  war,  since  his  long  absence  immediately  follow- 
ing his  elevation  to  the  throne  might  prove  prejudicial  to 
the  new  office.  Moreover,  a  strong  feeling  had  developed 
against  his  contemplated  assumption  of  royalty,  and 
Caesar  must  have  been  aware  that  he  could  not  put 


i68     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


his  plans  into  execution  without  considerable  opposition. 
Plutarch  tells  us  that  "  his  desire  of  being  King  had 
brought  upon  him  the  most  apparent  and  mortal  hatred, 
— a  fact  which  proved  the  most  plausible  pretence  to 
those  who  had  been  his  secret  enemies  all  along."  Much 
adverse  comment  had  been  made  with  reference  to  his 
not  rising  to  receive  the  Senatorial  deputation ;  and  in- 
deed he  felt  it  necessary  to  make  excuses  for  his  action, 
saying  that  his  old  illness  was  upon  him  at  the  time. 
A  report  was  spread  that  he  himself  would  have  been 
willing  to  rise,  but  that  Balbus  had  said  to  him,  "Will 
you  not  remember  you  are  Caesar  and  claim  the  honour 
due  to  your  merit  ? "  and  it  was  further  related  that 
when  the  Dictator  had  realised  the  offence  he  had  given, 
he  had  bared  his  throat  to  his  friends,  and  had  told 
them  that  he  was  ready  to  lay  down  his  life  if  the  public 
were  angry  with  him.  Incidents  such  as  this  showed 
that  the  time  was  not  yet  wholly  favourable  for  his  coup  ; 
and  reluctantly  Caesar  was  obliged  to  consider  its  post- 
ponement. On  the  other  hand,  there  was  something  to 
be  said  in  favour  of  immediate  action,  and  he  must  have 
been  more  or  less  prepared  to  accept  the  kingship  if 
it  were  urged  upon  him  before  he  set  out  for  the  East. 
The  position  of  Cleopatra,  however,  must  have  caused 
him  some  anxiety.  Without  her  and  their  baby  son  the 
creation  of  an  hereditary  monarchy  would  be  superfluous. 
His  own  wife  Calpurnia  did  not  seem  able  to  furnish 
him  with  an  heir,  and  there  was  certainly  no  other  woman 
in  Rome  who  could  be  expected  to  act  the  part  of  Queen 
with  any  degree  of  success,  even  if  she  were  proficient 
in  the  production  of  sons  and  heirs.  Yet  how,  on  the 
instant,  was  he  to  rid  himself  of  Calpurnia  and  marry 
Cleopatra  without  olfending  public  taste  ?     If  he  were 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  169 


to  accept  the  kingship  at  once  and_  make  Cleopatra  his 
wife,  was  she  capable  of  sustaining  with  success  the  role 
of  Queen  of  Rome  in  solitude  for  three  years  while  he 
was  away  at  the  wars  ?  Would  it  not  be  much  wiser 
to  send  her  back  to  Egypt  for  this  period,  there  to  await 
his  return,  and  then  to  marry  her  and  to  ascend  the 
throne  at  one  and  the  same  instant  ?  During  his  ab- 
sence in  the  East  Calpurnia  might  conveniently  meet 
with  a  sudden  and  fatal  illness,  and  no  man  would  dare 
to  attribute  her  death  to  his  and  the  apothecary's 
ingenuity. 

The  will  which  he  now  made,  or  confirmed,  in  view  of 
his  departure,  shows  clearl}'  that  his  desire  for  the  mon- 
archy was  incompatible  with  his  present  marital  con- 
ditions. Without  a  Queen  and  a  son  and  heir  there 
could  be  little  point  in  creating  a  throne,  since  already 
he  had  been  made  absolute  autocrat  for  his  lifetime ; 
for  unless  the  office  was  to  be  handed  on  without  dis- 
pute to  his  son  Cassarion,  there  was  no  advantage  in 
striving  for  an  immediate  elevation  to  the  kingship.  By 
his  will,  therefore,  which  was  made  in  view  of  his  pos- 
sible death  before  he  had  ascended  his  future  throne,  he 
simply  divided  his  property,  giving  part  of  it  to  the 
nation  and  part  to  his  relations,  his  favourite  nephew, 
Octavian,  receiving  a  considerable  share.  A  codicil  was 
added,  appointing  a  large  number  of  guardians  for  any 
offspring  which  might  possibly  be  born  to  him  by  Cal- 
purnia after  his  departure  ;  but  so  little  interest  did  he 
take  in  this  remote  contingency  that  he  seems  to  have 
made  no  financial  provision  for  such  an  infant.  There 
was  no  need  to  leave  money  to  Cleopatra  or  to  her 
child,  since  she  herself  was  fabulously  wealthy.  This 
will  was,  no  doubt,  intended  to  be  destroyed  if  he  were 


170     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


raised  to  the  throne  before  his  departure,  and  it  was 
afterwards  believed  that  he  actually  wrote  another  testa- 
ment in  favour  of  Csesarion,  which  was  to  be  used  if  a 
crown  were  offered  to  him  ;  but  if,  as  now  seemed  prob- 
able, that  event  were  postponed  until  his  return,  the 
dividing  of  his  property  would  be  the  best  settlement 
for  his  affairs  should  he  die  while  away  in  the  East. 
So  long  as  he  remained  uncrowned  there  was  no  occa- 
sion to  refer  either  to  Cleopatra  or  to  Caesarion  in  his 
testamentary  wishes ;  for  if  he  died  in  Parthia  or  India, 
still  as  Dictator,  his  hopes  of  founding  a  dynasty,  his 
plans  for  his  marriage  to  the  Queen  of  Egypt,  his  scheme 
for  training  up  Caesarion  to  follow  in  his  footsteps,  in- 
deed all  his  worldly  ambitions,  would  have  to  be  bundled 
into  oblivion.  Caesar  was  not  a  man  who  cared  much 
for  the  interests  of  other  people ;  and,  in  the  case  of 
Cleopatra,  he  was  quite  prepared  to  leave  her  to  fight 
for  herself  in  Egypt,  were  he  himself  to  be  removed  to 
those  celestial  spheres  wherein  he  would  have  no  further 
use  for  her.  His  passion  for  her  appears  now  to  have 
cooled;  and  though  he  must  still  have  enjoyed  her 
society,  and,  to  a  considerable  extent,  must  have  been 
open  to  her  influence,  her  chief  attraction  for  him  in 
these  latter  days  lay  in  the  recognition  of  her  suitability 
to  ascend  the  new  throne  by  his  side.  She,  on  her  part, 
no  doubt  retained  much  of  her  old  affection  for  him ; 
and,  in  spite  of  his  increasing  irritability  and  eccentri- 
city, she  seems  to  have  offered  him  the  generous  devo- 
tion of  a  warm-hearted  young  woman  for  a  great  and 
heroic  old  man. 

Caesar,  indeed,  was  old  before  his  time.  The  famous 
portrait  of  him,  now  preserved  in  the  Louvre,  shows 
him  to  have  been  haggard  and  worn.     He  was  still 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  171 


under  sixty  years  of  age,  but  all  semblance  of  youth 
had  gone  from  him,  and  the  burden  of  his  years  and  of 
his  illness  weighed  heavily  upon  his  spare  frame.  His 
indomitable  spirit,  and  the  keen  enthusiasm  of  his  nature, 
held  him  to  his  appointed  tasks ;  but  it  is  very  doubtful 
whether  his  constitution  could  now  have  borne  the 
hardships  of  the  campaign  which  lay  before  him.  His 
ill  -  health  must  have  caused  Cleopatra  the  gravest 
anxiety,  for  all  her  hopes  were  centred  upon  him,  and 
upon  that  day  when  he  should  make  her  Queen  of  the 
Earth.  The  fact  that  he  was  now  considering  the  post- 
ponement of  the  creation  of  the  monarchy  until  after 
the  Parthian  war  must  have  been  a  heavy  blow  to  her, 
for  there  was  good  reason  to  fear  lest  his  strength 
should  give  out  ere  his  task  could  be  completed.  For 
three  years  and  more  she  had  worked  with  Caesar  at 
the  laying  of  the  foundations  of  their  throne ;  and  now, 
partly  owing  to  the  undesirability  of  leaving  Rome  for 
so  long  a  period  immediately  after  accepting  the  crown, 
partly  owing  to  the  difficulty  in  regard  to  Calpurnia,  and 
partly  owing  to  the  hostility  of  a  large  number  of  prom- 
inent persons  to  the  idea  of  monarchy,  Caesar  was  post- 
poning for  three  years  that  coup  which  seemed  to  her 
not  only  to  mean  the  realisation  of  all  her  personal  and 
dynastic  ambitions,  but  actually  to  be  the  only  means 
by  which  she  could  save  Egypt  from  absorption  into  the 
Roman  dominions  or  preserve  a  throne  of  any  kind  for 
her  son.  In  the  Second  Philippic  Cicero  says  of  Caesar 
that  "  after  planning  for  many  years  his  way  to  royal 
power,  with  great  labour  and  with  many  dangers,  he 
had  effected  his  design.  By  public  exhibitions,  by  monu- 
mental buildings,  by  bribes  and  by  feasts,  he  had  con- 
ciliated the  unreflecting  multitude.    He  had  bound  to 


172     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


himself  his  own  friends  by  favours,  his  opponents  by  a 
show  of  clemency  ;  "  and  yet,  when  in  sight  of  his  goal, 
he  hesitated,  believing  it  better  to  wait  to  be  carried 
up  to  the  throne  by  that  wave  of  popular  enthusiasm 
which  assuredly  would  burst  over  Rome  when  he  should 
lead  back  from  the  East  his  triumphant,  loot  -  laden 
legionaries,  and  should  exhibit  in  golden  chains  in  the 
streets  of  the  capital  the  captive  kings  of  the  fabulous 
Orient.  The  delay  must  have  been  almost  intolerable 
to  Cleopatra ;  and  it  may  have  been  due  to  some  ar- 
rangement made  by  her  with  the  Dictator  and  Antony, 
who  now  must  have  been  a  constant  visitor  at  Caesar's 
villa,  that  an  event  took  place  which  brought  to  a 
head  the  question  of  the  date  of  the  establishment  of 
the  monarchy. 

On  February  15th  the  annual  festival  of  the  Lupercalia 
was  celebrated  in  Rome ;  and  upon  this  day  all  the  popu- 
lace, patrician  and  plebeian,  were  en  fete.  The  Romans  of 
Caesar's  time  do  not  seem  to  have  known  what  was  the 
origin  of  this  festival,  nor  what  was  the  real  significance 
of  the  rites  therein  performed.  They  understood  that 
upon  this  day  they  paid  their  respects  to  the  god 
Lupercus ;  and,  in  a  vague  manner,  they  identified  this 
obscure  deity  with  Faunus,  or  with  Pan,  in  his  capacity 
as  a  producer  of  fertility  and  fecundity  in  all  nature. 
Two  young  men  were  selected  from  the  honourable  order 
known  as  the  College  of  the  Luperci,  and  upon  this  day 
these  two  men  opened  the  proceedings  by  sacrificing  a 
goat  and  a  dog.  They  were  then  "  blooded,"  and  the 
ritual  prescribed  that  as  soon  as  this  was  done  they 
should  both  laugh.  They  next  cut  the  skins  of  the 
victims  into  long  strips  or  thongs,  known  as  februa ; 
and,  using  these  as  whips,  they  proceeded  to  run  around 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  173 


the  city,  striking  at  every  woman  with  whom  they  came 
into  contact.  A  thwack  from  the  febnia  was  believed  to 
produce  fertihty,  and  any  woman  who  desired  to  become 
a  mother  would  expose  herself  to  the  blows  which  the 
two  men  were  vigorously  delivering  on  all  sides.  By 
reason  of  this  strange  old  custom  the  day  was  known  as 
the  Dies  februatus ;  ^  and  from  this  is  derived  the  name  of 
the  month  of  February  in  which  the  festival  took  place. 

It  seems  to  me  certain  that  this  ceremony  was 
originally  related  to  the  Egyptian  rites  in  connection 
with  the  god  of  fecundity,  Min-Amon,  the  Pan  of  the 
Nile  Valley.  This  god  is  usually  represented  holding  in 
his  hand  a  whip,  perhaps  consisting  originally  of  jackal- 
skins  tied  to  a  stick ;  and  it  has  lately  been  proved  that 
the  hieroglyph  for  the  Egyptian  word  indicating  the  re- 
production of  species  ^  is  composed  simply  of  these  three 
jackal-skins  tied  together,  that  is  to  say  the  februa.  We 
know  practically  nothing  of  the  ceremonies  performed  in 
Egypt  in  regard  to  the  februa,  but  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  the  rites  were  fundamentally  similar  to  those 
of  the  Roman  Lupercalia.  The  dog  which  was  sacrificed 
in  Rome  had  probably  taken  the  place  of  the  Egyptian 
jackal ;  and  the  goat  is  perhaps  to  be  connected  with  the 
Egyptian  ram  which  was  sacred  to  Amon  or  Min-Amon. 

Now  it  is  very  possible  that  in  Alexandria  Cleopatra 
and  also  Caesar  had  become  well  acquainted  with  the 
Egyptian  equivalent  of  the  Roman  Lupercalia,  and  it  may 
be  suggested,  tentatively,  that  since  Caesar  was  regarded 

^  The  action  febriiare  means  "  to  purify,"  here  used  probably  to  signify  the 
magical  expurgation  of  the  person  struck  and  the  banishing  of  the  evil  influ- 
ences which  prevented  fertility. 

^  Compare  also  the  whip  carried  by  a  Sixth  Dynasty  noble  named  Ipe,  Cairo 
Museum,  No.  6i,  which  seems  more  than  a  simple  fly-flap. 

"  The  Egj^ptian  word  is  mes. 


174     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


in  that  country  as  the  god  Amon  who  had  given  fertility 
to  the  Queen,  he  may,  in  Egypt,  have  been  identified  in 
some  sort  of  manner  with  these  rites.  One  may  certainly 
imagine  Cleopatra  pointing  out  to  Caesar  the  similarity 
between  the  two  ceremonies,  and  suggesting  to  him  that 
he  was,  or  had  acted  in  the  manner  of,  a  kind  of 
Lupercus.  He  had  practically  identified  Cleopatra  with 
Venus  Genetrix,  the  goddess  of  fertility ;  and  he  may 
well  have  attributed  to  himself  the  faculties  of  that 
corresponding  god  who  carried  on  in  Rome  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  Egyptian  Min,  to  whom  already  Caesar  had 
been  so  closely  allied  by  the  priests  of  the  Nile.  The 
Dictator  certainly  took  great  interest  in  the  festival  of 
the  Lupercalia  in  Rome,  for  he  reorganised  the  pro- 
ceedings, and  actually  founded  an  order  known  as  the 
Luperci  Julii,  a  fact  which  could  be  regarded  as  indicating 
a  definite  identification  of  himself  with  Lupercus.  In- 
deed, if  he  was  identified  with  Min-Amon  in  Egypt,  and 
if,  as  I  have  suggested,  Min-Amon  is  originally  connected 
with  the  Lupercalia  celebrations,  it  may  be  supposed  that 
Caesar  really  assumed  by  right  the  position  of  divine  head 
of  this  order.  Knowing  the  Dictator  to  have  been  so 
careful  an  opportunist,  one  is  almost  tempted  to  suggest 
that  he  found  in  this  identification  an  excuse  and  a 
justification  for  his  behaviour  to  the  many  women  to 
whom  he  had  lost  his  heart ;  or  perhaps  it  were  better  to 
say  that  his  unscrupulous  attitude  towards  the  opposite 
sex,  and  the  successful  manner  in  which,  as  with 
Cleopatra,  he  had  succeeded  in  reproducing  his  kind, 
appeared  to  fit  him  constitutionally  for  this  particular 
godhead. 

Whether  or  no  Caesar,  in  the  intolerable  arrogance  of 
his  last  years,  was  now  actually  naming  himself  the 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  175 


fruitful  Lupercus  in  Rome  as  he  was  the  fecund  Amon 
in  Egypt,  it  is  a  fact  that  upon  this  occurrence  of  the 
festival  in  the  year  B.C.  44  he  was  presiding  over  the 
ceremonies,  while  his  lieutenant  Antony  was  enacting 
the  part  of  one  of  the  two  holders  of  the  februa.  On 
this  day  Caesar,  pale  and  emaciated,  was  seated  in  the 
Forum  upon  a  golden  throne,  dressed  in  a  splendid 
robe,  in  order  to  witness  the  celebrations,  when  sud- 
denly the  burly  Antony,  hot  from  his  run,  bounded 
into  view,  striking  to  right  and  left  with  the  fehrua, 
and  indulging,  no  doubt,  in  the  horse-play  which  he 
always  so  much  enjoyed.  An  excited  and  boisterous 
crowd  followed  him,  and  it  is  probable  that  both  he 
and  his  companions  thereupon  did  homage  to  the 
majestic  figure  of  the  Dictator,  hailing  him  as  Lupercus 
and  king  of  the  festivities.  Profiting  by  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  moment,  and  acting  according  to  arrangements 
previously  made  with  Cleopatra  or  with  Caesar  himself, 
Antony  now  stepped  forward  and  held  out  to  the 
Dictator  a  royal  diadem  wreathed  with  laurels,  at  the 
same  time  offering  him  the  kingship  of  Rome.  Caesar, 
as  we  have  seen,  had  already  been  publicly  hailed  as  a 
god  upon  earth,  and  now  Antony  seems  to  have  ad- 
dressed him  in  his  Lupercalian  character,  begging  him  to 
accept  this  terrestrial  throne  as  already  he  had  received 
the  throne  of  the  heavens.  No  sooner  had  he  spoken 
than  a  shout  of  approval  was  raised  by  a  number  of 
Caesarians  who  had  been  posted  in  different  parts  of 
the  Forum  for  this  purpose ;  but,  to  Caesar's  dismay, 
the  cheers  were  not  taken  up  by  the  crowd,  who,  indeed, 
appear  to  have  indulged  in  a  little  quiet  booing;  and 
the  Dictator  was  thus  obliged  to  refuse  the  proffered 
crown  with  a  somewhat  half-hearted  show  of  disdain. 


176     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


This  action  was  received  with  general  applause,  and 
the  temper  of  the  crowd  was  clearly  demonstrated. 
Again  Antony  held  the  diadem  towards  him,  and  again 
the  isolated  and  very  artificial  cheers  of  his  supporters 
were  heard.  Thereupon  Caesar,  accepting  the  situation 
with  as  good  a  grace  as  possible,  definitely  refused  to  re- 
ceive it ;  and  at  this  the  applause  once  more  broke  forth. 
He  then  gave  orders  that  the  diadem  should  be  carried 
into  the  Capitol,  and  that  a  note  should  be  inscribed  in 
the  official  calendar  stating  that  on  this  day  the  people 
had  offered  him  the  crown  and  that  he  had  refused  it. 
It  seems  probable  that  Antony,  appreciating  the  false 
step  which  had  been  made,  now  rounded  off  the  incident 
in  as  merry  a  manner  as  possible,  beginning  once  more  to 
strike  about  him  with  his  magical  whip,  and  leading  the 
crowd  out  of  the  Forum  with  the  same  noise  and  horse- 
play with  which  they  had  entered  it. 

The  chances  now  in  regard  to  the  immediate  assump- 
tion of  the  kingship  became  more  remote.  Caesar  in- 
tended to  set  out  for  Parthia  in  about  a  month's  time ; 
and  it  must  have  been  apparent  to  him  that  his  hopes  of 
a  throne  would  probably  have  to  be  set  aside  until  the 
coming  war  was  at  an  end.  In  regard  to  Cleopatra 
nothing  remained  for  him  to  do,  therefore,  but  to  bid 
her  prepare  to  return  to  Egypt,  there  to  await  until  the 
Orient  was  conquered ;  and  during  the  next  few  weeks  it 
seems  that  the  disappointed  and  troubled  Queen  en- 
gaged herself  in  making  preparation  for  her  departure. 
Suetonius  tells  us  that  Caesar  loaded  her  with  presents 
and  honours  in  these  last  days  of  their  companionship ; 
and  doubtless  he  encouraged  her  as  best  he  could  with 
the  recitation  of  his  great  hopes  and  ambitions  for  the 
future.    There  was  still  a  chance  tHat  the  monarchy 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  177 


would  be  created  before  the  war,  for  there  was  some 
talk  that  Antony  and  his  friends  would  offer  the  crown 
once  more  to  Caesar  upon  the  Calends  of  March ;  ^  but 
Cleopatra  could  not  have  dared  to  hope  too  eagerly  for 
this  event  in  view  of  the  failure  at  the  Lupercalia.  To 
the  Queen,  who  had  expected  by  this  time  to  be  seated 
upon  the  Roman  throne,  his  reassuring  words  can  have 
been  poor  comfort ;  and  an  atmosphere  of  gloomy  fore- 
boding must  have  settled  upon  her  as  she  directed  the 
packing  of  her  goods  and  chattels  and  prepared  herself 
and  her  baby  for  the  long  journey  across  the  Mediter- 
ranean to  her  now  uneventful  kingdom  of  Egypt. 

^  Plutarch  :  Brutus. 


M 


178 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  DEATH  OF  C^SAR  AND  THE  RETURN  OF 
CLEOPATRA  TO  EGYPT. 

There  can  be  little  reason  for  doubt  that  Antony,  who 
is  to  play  so  important  a  part  in  the  subsequent  pages  of 
this  history,  saw  Cleopatra  in  Rome  on  several  occasions. 
After  his  reconciliation  to  Caesar  in  the  early  summer  of 
B.C.  45,  he  must  have  been  a  constant  visitor  at  the 
Dictator's  villa ;  and,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  his 
espousal  of  Cleopatra's  cause  in  regard  to  Caesar's  will 
suggests  that  her  charm  had  not  been  overlooked  by  him. 
It  is  said,  as  we  have  seen,  that  he  had  met  her,  and  had 
already  been  attracted  by  her,  ten  years  previously,  when 
he  entered  Alexandria  with  Gabinius  in  order  to  establish 
her  father  Auletes  upon  his  rickety  throne.  He  was  a 
man  of  impulsive  and  changeable  character,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  determine  his  exact  attitude  towards  Caesar 
at  this  time.  While  the  Dictator  was  in  Egypt  Antony 
had  been  placed  in  charge  of  his  affairs  in  Rome,  but 
owing  to  a  quarrel  between  the  two  men,  Caesar,  on  his 
return  from  Alexandria,  had  dismissed  him  from  his 
service.  Very  naturally  Antony  had  felt  considerable 
animosity  to  the  Dictator  on  this  account,  and  it  was 
even  rumoured,  as  has  been  said,  that  he  desired  to 
assassinate  him.    After  the  Spanish  war,  however,  the 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  179 


quarrel  was  forgotten ;  and,  as  we  have  just  seen,  it  was 
Antony  who  had  offered  him  the  crown  at  the  festival  of 
the  Lupercalia.  In  spite  of  this,  Caesar  does  not  seem  to 
have  trusted  him  fully,  although  he  now  appears  to  have 
been  recognised  as  the  most  ardent  supporter  of  the 
Caesarian  party. 

Csesar  had  never  excelled  as  a  judge  of  men.  Although 
unquestionably  a  genius  and  a  man  of  supreme  mental 
powers,  the  Dictator  was  ever  open  to  flattery;  and  he 
collected  around  him  a  number  of  satellites  who  had 
won  their  way  into  his  favour  by  blandishments  and 
by  countenance  of  their  master's  many  eccentricities. 
Balbus  and  Oppius,  Caesar's  two  most  intimate  attend- 
ants, were  men  of  mediocre  standing ;  and  Publius 
Cornelius  Dolabella,  who  now  comes  into  some  promi- 
nence, was  a  young  adventurer,  whose  desire  for  personal 
gain  must  have  been  concealed  with  difficulty.  This 
personage,  although  only  five-and-twenty  years  of  age, 
had  been  appointed  by  Caesar  to  the  consulship  which 
would  become  vacant  upon  his  own  departure  for  the 
East,  a  move  that  must  have  given  grave  offence  to 
Antony ;  for  Dolabella,  a  few  years  previously,  had  fallen 
in  love  with  Antony's  wife,  Antonia,  who  had  conse- 
quently been  divorced,  the  outraged  husband  thereafter 
finding  consolation  in  the  marriage  to  his  present  wife 
Fulvia.  The  various  favours  conferred  by  Czesar  on  this 
young  scamp  must  therefore  have  caused  considerable 
irritation  to  Antony  ;  and  it  is  not  easy  to  suppose  that 
the  latter's  apparent  devotion  to  the  cause  of  the 
Dictator  was  altogether  genuine.  Indeed,  the  rumour 
once  more  passed  into  circulation  that  Antony  nursed 
designs  upon  Caesar's  life,  this  time,  strange  to  say,  in 
conjunction  with  Dolabella.    On  hearing  this  report  the 


i8o     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Dictator  remarked  that  he  "did  not  fear  such  fat, 
luxurious  men  as  these  two,  but  rather  the  pale,  lean 
fellows." 

Of  the  latter  type  was  Cassius,  a  sour,  fanatical  soldier 
and  politician,  who  had  fought  against  Caesar  at  Phar- 
salia,  and  had  been  freely  pardoned  by  him  afterwards. 
From  early  youth  Cassius  entertained  a  particular  hatred 
of  any  form  of  autocracy ;  and  it  is  related  of  him  that 
when  at  school  the  boy  Faustus,  the  son  of  the  famous 
Sulla,  had  boasted  of  his  father's  autocratic  powers, 
Cassius  had  promptly  punched  his  head.  Caesar's 
attempts  to  obtain  the  throne  excited  this  man's  ferocity, 
and  he  was  probably  the  originator  of  the  plot  which 
terminated  the  Dictator's  life.  The  plot  was  hatched 
in  February  B.C.  44,  and,  when  Cassius  and  his  friends 
had  prevailed  upon  the  influential  and  studious  Marcus 
Brutus  to  join  them,  it  rapidly  developed  into  a  wide- 
spread conspiracy.  "  I  don't  like  Cassius,"  Caesar  was 
once  heard  to  remark;  "  he  looks  so  pale.  What  can  he 
be  aiming  at  ?  " 

For  Brutus,  however,  the  Dictator  entertained  the 
greatest  affection  and  esteem,  and  there  was  a  time 
when  he  regarded  him  as  his  probable  successor  in  office. 
One  cannot  view  without  distress,  even  after  the  passage 
of  so  many  centuries,  the  devotion  of  the  irritable  old 
autocrat  to  this  scholarly  and  promising  young  man  who 
was  now  plotting  against  him ;  for,  in  spite  of  his  mani- 
fold faults,  Caesar  ever  remains  a  character  which  all 
men  esteem  and  with  which  all  must  largely  sympathise. 
On  one  occasion  somebody  warned  him  that  Brutus 
was  plotting  against  him,  to  which  the  Dictator  replied, 
"  What,  do  you  think  Brutus  will  not  wait  out  the 
appointed  time  of  this  little  body  of  mine  ? "     It  is 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  i8i 


probable  that  Caesar  thought  it  not  at  all  unlikely  that 
Brutus  was  his  own  son,  for  his  mother,  Servilia,  as 
early  as  the  year  of  his  birth,  and  for  long  afterwards, 
had  oeen  on  such  terms  of  intimacy  with  Cssar  as 
would  justify  this  belief.  Brutus,  on  the  other  hand, 
thought  himself  to  be  the  son  of  Servilia's  legal  husband, 
and  through  him  claimed  descent  from  the  famous  Junius 
Brutus  who  had  expelled  the  Tarquins.  Servilia  was  the 
sister  of  Cato,  whose  suicide  had  followed  his  defeat  by 
Caesar  in  North  Africa,  and  Porcia,  the  wife  of  Brutus, 
was  Cato's  daughter.  It  might  have  been  supposed, 
therefore,  that  Brutus  would  have  felt  considerable 
antipathy  towards  the  Dictator,  more  especially  after 
the  publication  of  his  venomous  Anti  -  Cato.  There 
was,  however,  equally  reasonable  cause  for  Brutus  to 
have  sympathised  with  Cassar,  for  his  supposed  father 
had  been  put  to  death  by  Pompey,  an  execution  which 
Caesar  had,  as  it  were,  been  instrumental  in  avenging. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Brutus  was  a  young  man  who  lived 
upon  high  principles,  as  a  cow  does  upon  grass ;  and 
such  family  incidents  as  the  seduction  of  his  mother,  or 
the  destruction  of  his  mother's  brother  and  his  wife's 
father,  or  the  bloodthirsty  warfare  between  his  father's 
executioner  and  his  father-in-law's  enemy  and  calumniator, 
were  not  permitted  to  influence  his  righteous  brain.  In 
his  early  years  he  had,  very  naturally,  refused  on  principle 
to  speak  to  Pompey,  but  when  the  civil  war  broke  out 
he  set  aside  all  those  petty  feelings  of  dislike  which,  in 
memory  of  his  legal  father,  he  had  entertained  towards 
the  Pompeian  faction,  and,  on  principle,  he  ranged 
himself  upon  that  side  in  the  conflict,  believing  it  to 
be  the  juster  cause.  Pompey  is  said  to  have  been  so 
surprised  at  the  arrival  of  this  good  young  man  in  his 


i82     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


camp,  whither  nobody  had  asked  him  to  come,  and 
where  nobody  particularly  desired  his  presence,  that  he 
stood  up  and  embraced  him  as  though  he  were  a  lost 
lamb  come  back  to  the  fold.  Then  followed  the  battle 
of  Pharsalia,  and  Brutus  had  been  obliged  to  fly  for  his 
life.  He  need  not,  however,  have  feared  for  his  safety, 
for  Caesar  had  given  the  strictest  orders  that  nobody  was 
to  hurt  him  either  in  the  battle  or  in  the  subsequent 
chase  of  the  fugitives.  From  Larissa,  whither  he  had 
fled,  he  wrote,  on  principle,  to  Caesar,  stating  that  he 
was  prepared  to  surrender ;  and  the  Dictator,  in  memory, 
it  is  said,  of  many  a  pleasant  hour  with  Servilia,  at  once 
pardoned  him  and  heaped  honours  upon  him.  Brutus, 
then,  on  principle,  laid  information  against  Pompey, 
telling  Caesar  whither  he  had  fled  ;  and  thus  it  came 
about  that  the  Dictator  arrived  in  Egypt  on  that  October 
morning  of  which  we  have  read. 

Brutus  was  an  intellectual  young  man,  whose  writings 
and  orations  were  filled  with  maxims  and  pithy  axioms. 
He  had,  however,  a  certain  vivacity  and  fire ;  and  once 
when  Caesar  had  listened,  a  trifle  bewildered,  to  one  of 
his  vigorous  speeches,  the  Dictator  was  heard  to  remark, 
"  I  don't  know  what  this  young  man  means,  but,  what- 
ever he  means,  he  means  it  vehemently."  He  believed 
himself  to  be,  and  indeed  was,  very  firm  and  just,  and 
he  had  schooled  himself  to  resist  flattery,  ignoring  all 
requests  made  to  him  by  such  means.  He  was  wont 
to  declare  that  a  man  who,  in  mature  years,  could  not 
say  "no"  to  his  friends,  must  have  been  very  badly 
behaved  in  the  flower  of  his  youth.  Cassius,  who  was 
the  brother-in-law  of  Brutus,  deemed  it  very  advisable 
to  introduce  this  exemplary  young  man  into  the  con- 
spiracy, and  he  therefore  invited  him,  as  a  preliminary 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  183 


measure,  to  be  present  in  the  Senate  on  the  Calends  of 
March,  when  it  was  rumoured  that  Caesar  would  be 
made  king.  Brutus  replied  that  he  would  most  certainly 
absent  himself  on  that  day.  Nothing  daunted,  Cassius 
asked  him  what  he  would  do  supposing  Caesar  insisted 
on  his  being  present.  "  In  that  case,"  said  Brutus,  in 
the  most  approved  style,  "  it  will  be  my  business  not  to 
keep  silent,  but  to  stand  up  boldly,  and  die  for  the  liberty 
of  my  country."  Such  being  his  views,  it  was  apparent 
that  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  persuading  him,  on 
principle,  to  assist  in  the  murder  of  Caesar,  who  had,  it 
is  true,  spared  his  life  in  Pharsalia,  but  who  was,  never- 
theless, an  enemy  of  the  People.  The  conspirators, 
therefore,  dropped  pieces  of  paper  on  the  official  chair 
whereon  he  sat,  inscribed  with  such  words  as  "  Wake 
up,  Brutus,"  or  "  You  are  not  a  true  Brutus "  ;  and  on 
the  statue  of  Junius  Brutus  they  scribbled  sentences, 
such  as  "  O  that  we  had  a  Brutus  now  !  "  or  "  O  that 
Brutus  were  alive  !  "  In  this  way  the  young  man's  feel- 
ings were  played  upon,  and,  after  a  few  days  of  solemn 
thought,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  his 
painful  duty,  on  principle,  to  bring  Caesar's  life  to  a 
close. 

By  March  ist  the  conspirators  numbered  in  their 
ranks  some  sixty  or  eighty  senators,  mostly  friends  of 
the  Dictator,  and  had  Caesar  attempted  then  to  proclaim 
himself  king  he  would  at  once  have  been  assassinated. 
There  were  too  many  rumours  current  of  plots  against 
him,  however,  to  permit  him  to  take  this  step,  and  so 
the  days  passed  in  uneventfulness.  He  had  planned  to 
leave  Rome  for  the  East  on  March  17th,  and  it  was 
thought  possible  that  his  last  visit  to  the  Senate  on 
March  15th,  or  his  departure  from  the  capital,  would 


i84     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


be  the  occasion  of  a  demonstration  in  his  favour  which 
would  lead  to  his  being  offered  the  crown  as  a  parting 
gift.  The  conspirators  therefore  decided  to  make  an 
end  of  Caesar  on  March  15th,  the  Ides  of  March,  upon 
which  date  he  would  probably  come  for  the  last  time  to 
the  Senate  as  Dictator. 

Brutus,  of  course,  was  terribly  troubled  as  the  day 
drew  near.  He  was  at  heart  a  good  and  honourable  man, 
but  the  weakness  of  his  character,  combined  with  his 
intense  desire  to  act  in  a  high-principled  manner,  led  him 
often  to  appear  to  be  a  turncoat.  Actually  his  motives 
were  patriotic  and  noble,  but  he  must  have  asked  himself 
many  a  time  whether  what  he  believed  to  be  his  duty  to 
his  country  was  to  be  regarded  as  entirely  abrogating 
what  he  knew  to  be  his  duty  to  his  devoted  patron. 
The  tumult  in  his  mind  caused  him  at  night  to  toss 
and  turn  in  his  sleep  in  a  fever  of  unrest,  and  his  wife, 
Porcia,  observing  his  distress,  implored  him  to  confide 
his  troubles  to  her.  Brutus  thereupon  told  her  of  the 
conspiracy,  and  thereby  risked  the  necks  of  all  his 
comrades. 

A  curious  gloom  seems  to  have  fallen  upon  Rome  at 
this  time,  and  an  atmosphere  of  foreboding,  due  perhaps 
to  rumours  that  a  plot  was  afoot,  descended  upon  the 
actors  in  this  unforgettable  drama.  Caesar  went  about 
his  preparations  for  the  Oriental  campaign  in  his  usual 
business-like  manner,  and  raised  money  for  the  war  with 
his  wonted  unscrupulousness  and  acuteness ;  but  it  does 
not  require  any  pressure  upon  the  historical  imagination 
to  observe  the  depression  which  he  now  felt  and  which 
must  have  been  shared  by  his  associates.  The  majority 
of  the  conspirators  were  his  friends  and  fellow-workers 
— men,  many  of  them,  whom  he  had  pardoned  for  past 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  185 


offences  during  the  Civil  War  and  had  raised  to  positions 
of  trust  in  his  administration.  At  this  time  he  appears 
to  have  been  living  with  Calpurnia  in  his  city  residence, 
and  so  busy  was  he  with  his  arrangements  that  he  could 
not  have  found  time  to  pay  many  visits  to  Cleopatra.^ 
The  Queen  must  therefore  have  remained  in  a  state  of 
distressing  suspense.  The  Calends  of  March,  at  which 
date  the  proclamation  of  the  monarchy  had  been  expected, 
had  passed ;  and  now  the  Dictator  could  have  held  out 
to  her  but  one  last  hope  of  the  realisation  of  their  joint 
ambition  previous  to  his  departure.  Caesar  must  have 
told  her  that,  as  far  as  the  three-year-old  Caesarion  was 
concerned,  she  could  expect  nothing  until  the  throne  had 
been  created ;  for,  obviously,  this  was  no  time  in  which 
to  leave  a  baby  as  his  heir.  His  nephew  Octavian,  an 
active  and  energetic  young  man,  would  have  to  succeed 
him  in  office  if  he  were  to  die  before  he  had  obtained 
the  crown,  and  his  vast  property  would  have  to  be 
distributed.  The  Dictator  must  have  remembered  the 
fact  of  the  murder  of  the  young  son  of  Alexander  the 
Great  soon  after  his  father's  death,  and  he  could  have 
had  no  desire  that  his  own  boy  should  be  slaughtered 
in  like  manner  by  his  rapacious  guardians.  Yet  Cleopatra 
still  delayed  her  departure,  in  the  hope  that  the  great 
event  would  take  place  on  March  15th,  so  that  at  any 
rate  she  might  return  to  Egypt  in  the  knowledge  that 
her  position  as  Caesar's  wife  was  secured. 

The  prevailing  depression  acted  strangely  upon  people's 
nerves,  and  stories  began  to  spread  of  ominous  premoni- 
tions of  trouble,  and  menacing  signs  and  wonders.  There 

^  According  to  Suetonius,  the  Queen  had  now  been  sent  back  to  Egypt,  but 
a  letter  from  Cicero,  written  in  the  following  month,  shows  that  she  was  in 
Rome  until  then. 


i86     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


were  unaccountable  lights  in  the  heavens,  and  awful 
noises  at  dead  of  night.  Somebody  said  that  he  had 
seen  a  number  of  phantoms,  in  the  guise  of  men,  fight- 
ing with  one  another,  and  that  they  were  all  aglow  as 
though  they  were  red-hot ;  and  upon  another  occasion 
it  was  noticed  that  numerous  strange  birds  of  ill  omen 
had  alighted  in  the  Forum.  Once,  when  Caesar  was 
sacrificing,  the  heart  of  the  victim  was  found  to  be 
missing,  an  omen  of  the  worst  significance ;  and  at 
other  times  the  daily  auguries  were  observed  to  be 
extremely  inauspicious.  An  old  soothsayer,  who  may 
have  got  wind  of  the  plot,  warned  the  Dictator  to 
beware  of  the  Ides  of  March ;  but  Caesar,  whose 
courage  was  always  phenomenal,  did  not  allow  the 
prediction  to  alter  his  movements. 

Upon  the  evening  of  March  14th,  the  day  before  the 
dreaded  Ides,  Caesar  supped  with  his  friend  Marcus 
Lepidus,  and  as  he  was  signing  some  letters  which  had 
been  brought  to  him  for  approval  the  conversation  hap- 
pened to  turn  upon  the  subject  of  death,  and  the 
question  was  asked  as  to  what  kind  of  ending  was  to 
be  preferred.  The  Dictator,  quickly  looking  up  from 
his  papers,  said  decisively,  "  A  sudden  one !  "  the  sig- 
nificance of  which  remark  was  to  be  realised  by  his 
friends  a  few  hours  later.  That  night,  Plutarch  tells 
us,  as  Caesar  lay  upon  his  bed,  suddenly,  as  though 
by  a  tremendous  gust  of  wind,  all  the  doors  and 
windows  of  his  house  flew  open,  letting  in  the  brilliant 
light  of  the  moon.  Calpurnia  lay  asleep  by  his  side, 
but  he  noticed  that  she  was  uttering  inarticulate  words 
and  was  sobbing  as  though  in  the  deepest  distress  ; 
and  upon  being  awakened  she  said  that  she  had  thought 
in  her  dreams  that  he  was  murdered.    Caesar  must  have 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  187 


realised  that  such  a  dream  was  probably  due  to  her  fears 
as  to  the  truth  of  the  soothsayer's  prophecy;  but,  at 
the  same  time,  her  earnest  request  to  him  not  to  leave 
his  house  on  the  following  day  made  a  considerable 
impression  upon  him. 

In  the  morning  the  conspirators  collected  in  that  part 
of  the  governmental  buildings  where  the  Senate  was  to 
meet  that  day.  The  place  chosen  was  a  pillared  portico 
adjoining  the  theatre,  having  at  the  back  a  deep  recess 
in  which  stood  a  statue  of  Pompey.^  Some  of  the  men 
were  public  officials  whose  business  it  was  to  act  as 
magistrates  and  to  hear  cases  which  had  been  brought 
to  them  for  judgment ;  and  it  is  said  that  not  one  of 
them  betrayed  by  his  manner  any  nervousness  or  lack 
of  interest  in  these  public  concerns.  In  the  case  of 
Brutus  this  was  particularly  noticeable;  and  it  is  related 
that  upon  one  of  the  plaintiffs  before  him  refusing  to 
stand  to  his  award  and  declaring  that  he  would  appeal 
to  Caesar,  Brutus  calmly  remarked,  "  Caesar  does  not 
hinder  me,  nor  will  he  hinder  me,  from  acting  according 
to  the  laws." 

This  composure,  however,  began  to  desert  them  when 
it  was  found  that  the  Dictator  was  delaying  his  departure 
from  his  house.  The  report  spread  that  he  had  decided 
not  to  come  to  the  Senate  that  day,  and  it  was  soon 
realised  that  this  might  be  interpreted  as  meaning  that 
he  had  discovered  the  plot.  Their  agitation  was  such 
that  at  length  they  sent  a  certain  Decimus  Brutus 
Albinus,  a  very  trusted  friend  of  the  Dictator,  to 
Caesar's  house  to  urge  him  to  make  haste.  Decimus 
found  him  just  preparing  to  postpone  the  meeting  of 
the  Senate,  his  feelings  having  been  worked  upon  by 

^  The  site  is  near  the  present  Campo  dei  Fiori. 


i88     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Calpurnia's  fears,  and  also  by  the  fact  that  he  had 
received  a  report  from  the  augurs  stating  that  the 
sacrifices  for  the  day  had  been  inauspicious.  In  this 
dilemma  Decimus  made  a  statement  to  Caesar,  the  truth 
of  which  is  now  not  able  to  be  ascertained.  He  told 
the  Dictator  that  the  Senate  had  decided  unanimously 
to  confer  upon  him  that  day  the  title  of  King  of  all 
the  Roman  Dominions  outside  Italy,  and  to  authorise 
him  to  wear  a  royal  diadem  in  any  place  on  land  or 
sea  except  in  Italy. ^  He  added  that  Caesar  should  not 
give  the  Senate  so  fair  a  justification  for  saying  that 
he  had  put  a  slight  upon  them  by  adjourning  the 
meeting  on  so  important  an  occasion  owing  to  the  bad 
dreams  of  a  woman. 

At  this  piece  of  news  Caesar  must  have  been  filled 
with  triumphant  excitement.  The  wished  -  for  moment 
had  come.  At  last  he  was  to  be  made  king,  and  the 
dominions  to  be  delivered  over  to  him  were  obviously 
but  the  first  instalment  of  the  vaster  gift  which  assuredly 
he  would  receive  in  due  course.  The  doubt  and  the 
gloom  of  the  last  few  weeks  in  a  moment  were  banished, 
for  this  day  he  would  be  monarch  of  an  empire  such  as 
had  never  before  been  seen.  What  did  it  matter  that 
in  Rome  itself  he  would  be  but  Dictator  ?  He  would 
establish  his  royal  capital  elsewhere :  in  Alexandria, 
perhaps,  or  on  the  site  of  Troy.  He  would  be  able 
at  once  to  marry  Cleopatra  and  to  incorporate  her 
dominions  with  his  own.  Calpurnia  might  remain  for 
the  present  the  wife  of  the  childless  Dictator  in  Rome, 
and  his  nephew  Octavian  might  be  his  official  heir;  but 
outside  his  fatherland,  Queen  Cleopatra  should  be  his 
consort,  and  his  own  little  son  should  be  his  heir  and 

^  Plutarch  :  Caesar. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  189 


successor.  The  incongruities  of  the  situation  would  so 
soon  be  felt  that  Rome  would  speedily  acknowledge  him 
king  in  Italy  as  well  as  out  of  it.  Probably  he  had 
often  discussed  with  Cleopatra  the  possibilities  of  this 
solution  of  the  problem,  for  the  idea  of  making  him 
king  outside  Italy  had  been  proposed  some  weeks  pre- 
viously ;  ^  and  he  must  now  have  thought  how  amused 
and  delighted  the  Queen  would  be  by  this  unexpected 
decision  of  the  Senate  to  adopt  the  rather  absurd  scheme. 
As  soon  as  he  had  married  the  Sovereign  of  Egypt  and 
had  made  Alexandria  one  of  his  capitals,  his  dominions 
would  indeed  be  an  Egypto-Roman  Empire ;  and  when 
at  length  Rome  should  invite  him  to  reign  also  within 
Italy,  the  situation  would  suggest  rather  that  Egypt 
had  incorporated  Rome  than  that  Rome  had  absorbed 
Egypt.  How  that  would  tickle  Cleopatra,  whose  dynasty 
had  for  so  long  feared  extinction  at  the  hands  of  the 
Romans ! 

Rising  to  his  feet,  and  taking  Decimus  by  the  hand, 
Caesar  set  out  at  once  for  the  Senate,  his  forebodings 
banished  and  his  ambitious  old  brain  full  of  confidence 
and  hope.  On  his  way  through  the  street  two  persons, 
one  a  servant  and  the  other  a  teacher  of  logic,  made 
attempts  to  acquaint  him  with  his  danger;  and  the 
soothsayer  who  had  urged  him  to  beware  of  the  Ides 
of  March  once  more  repeated  his  warning.  But  Cassar 
was  now  in  no  mood  to  abandon  the  prospective  excite- 
ments of  the  day ;  and  the  risk  of  assassination  may, 
indeed,  have  been  to  him  the  very  element  which  de- 
lighted him,  for  he  was  ever  inspired  by  the  presence 
of  danger. 

Meanwhile  the   conspirators   paced   the   Portico  of 

1  Page  162. 


igo     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Pompey  in  painful  anxiety,  fearing  every  moment  to 
hear  that  the  plot  had  been  discovered.  It  must  have 
been  apparent  to  them  that  there  were  persons  outside 
the  conspiracy  who  knew  of  their  designs^-and  when  a 
certain  Popilius  Laena,  a  senator,  not  of  their  number, 
whispered  to  Brutus  and  Cassius  that  the  secret  was 
out,  but  that  he  wished  them  success,  their  feelings 
must  have  been  hard  to  conceal.  Then  came  news 
that  Porcia  had  fallen  into  an  hysterical  frenzy  caused 
by  her  suspense ;  and  Brutus  must  have  feared  that  in 
this  condition  she  would  reveal  the  plot. 

At  length,  however,  Csesar  was  seen  to  be  approaching  ; 
but  their  consequent  relief  was  at  once  checked  when  it 
was  observed  that  Popilius  Laena,  who  had  said  that  he 
knew  all,  entered  into  deep  and  earnest  conversation  with 
the  Dictator.  The  conversation,  however,  proved  to  be 
of  no  consequence,  and  Caesar  presently  walked  on  into 
the  Curia  where  the  Senate  was  to  meet.  A  certain 
Trebonius  was  now  set  to  detain  Antony  in  conversation 
outside  the  doorway ;  for  it  had  been  decided  that, 
although  the  latter  was  Caesar's  right  -  hand  man,  he 
should  not  be  murdered,  but  that,  after  the  assassin- 
ation, he  should  be  won  over  to  the  side  of  the  so-called 
patriots  by  fair  words. 

When  C^sar  entered  the  building  the  whole  Senate 
rose  to  their  feet  in  respectful  salutation.  The  Dictator 
having  taken  his  seat,  one  of  the  conspirators,  named 
Tullius  Cimber,  approached  him  ostensibly  with  the 
purpose  of  petitioning  him  to  pardon  his  exiled  brother. 
The  others  at  once  gathered  round,  pressing  so  close 
upon  him  that  Caesar  was  obliged  to  order  them  to  stand 
back.  Then,  perhaps  suspecting  their  design,  he  sprang 
suddenly  to  his  feet,  whereupon  Tullius  caught  hold  of 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  191 


his  toga  and  pulled  it  from  him,  thus  leaving  his  spare 
frame  covered  only  by  a  light  tunic.  Instantly  a  senator 
named  Casca,  whom  the  Dictator  had  just  honoured 
with  promotion,  struck  him  in  the  shoulder  with  his 
dagger,  whereupon  Caesar,  grappling  with  him,  cried  out 
in  a  loud  voice,  "  You  villain,  Casca !  what  are  you 
doing  ?  "  A  moment  later,  Casca's  brother  stabbed  him 
in  the  side.  Cassius,  whose  life  Caesar  had  spared  after 
Pharsalia,  struck  him  in  the  face  ;  Bucolianus  drove  a 
knife  between  his  shoulder-blades,  and  Decimus  Brutus, 
who  so  recently  had  encouraged  him  to  come  to  the 
Senate,  wounded  him  in  the  groin.  Caesar  fought  for 
his  life  like  a  wild  animal.^  He  struck  out  to  right  and 
left  with  his  stilus,  and,  streaming  with  blood,  managed 
to  break  his  way  through  the  circle  of  knives  to  the 
pedestal  of  the  statue  of  his  old  enemy  Pompey.  He 
had  just  grasped  Casca  once  more  by  the  arm,  when 
suddenly  perceiving  his  beloved  Marcus  Brutus  coming 
at  him  with  dagger  drawn,  he  gasped  out,  "  You,  too, 
Brutus — my  son!"  and  fell,  dying,  upon  the  ground.- 
Instantly  the  pack  of  murderers  was  upon  him,  slashing 
and  stabbing  at  his  prostrate  form,  wounding  one  another 
in  their  excitement,  and  nigh  tumbling  over  him  where 
he  lay  in  a  pool  of  blood. 

As  soon  as  all  signs  of  life  had  left  the  body,  the  con- 
spirators turned  to  face  the  Senate ;  but,  to  their  surprise, 
they  found  the  members  rushing  madly  from  the  building. 
Brutus  had  prepared  a  speech  to  make  to  them  as  soon 
as  the  murder  should  be  accomplished ;  but  in  a  few 
moments  nobody  was  left  in  the  Curia  for  him  to  address. 

^  Appian. 

^  Some  authors  state  that  he  cried  "  Et  tu,  Brute  "  ;  others  that  the  words 
"  my  son  "  were  added  ;  while  yet  others  do  not  record  any  words  at  all. 


192     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


He  and  his  companions,  therefore,  were  at  a  loss  to  know 
what  to  do ;  but  at  length  they  issued  forth  from  the 
building,  somewhat  nervously  brandishing  their  daggers 
and  shouting  catch-words  about  Liberty  and  the  Republic. 
At  their  approach  everybody  fied  to  their  homes  ;  and 
Antony,  fearing  that  he,  too,  would  be  murdered,  dis- 
guised himself  and  hurried  by  side-streets  to  his  house. 
They  therefore  took  up  their  position  in  the  Capitol, 
and  there  remained  until  a  deputation  of  senators  in- 
duced them  to  come  down  to  the  Forum.  Here,  stand- 
ing in  the  rostra,  Brutus  addressed  the  crowd,  who  were 
fairly  well  -  disposed  towards  him  ;  but  when  another 
speaker,  Cinna,  made  bitter  accusations  against  the  dead 
man,  the  people  chased  the  conspirators  back  once  more 
to  the  Capitol,  where  they  spent  the  night. 

When  darkness  had  fallen  and  the  tumult  had  sub- 
sided, Antony  made  his  way  to  the  Forum,  whither,  he 
had  heard,  the  body  of  Caesar  had  been  carried ;  and 
here,  in  the  light  of  the  moon,  he  looked  once  more  upon 
the  face  of  his  arrogant  old  master.  Here,  too,  he  met 
Calpurnia,  and,  apparently  at  her  request,  took  charge  of 
all  the  Dictator's  documents  and  valuables. 

Upon  the  next  day,  at  Antony's  suggestion,  a  general 
amnesty  was  proclaimed,  and  matters  were  amicably 
discussed.  It  was  then  decided  that  Caesar's  will 
should  be  opened,  but  the  contents  must  have  been 
a  surprise  to  both  parties.  The  dead  man  bequeathed 
to  every  Roman  citizen  300  sesterces,  giving  also  to  the 
Roman  people  his  vast  estates  and  gardens  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Tiber,  where  Cleopatra  was,  at  the  time, 
residing.  Three-quarters  of  the  remainder  of  his  estate 
was  bequeathed  to  Octavian,  and  the  other  quarter  was 
divided  between  his  two  nephews,  Lucius  Pinarius  and 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  193 


Quintus  Pedius.  In  a  codicil  he  added  that  Octavian 
should  be  his  official  heir  ;  and  he  named  several  guardi- 
ans for  his  son,  should  one  be  born  to  him  after  his  death. 

The  dead  body  lay  in  state  in  the  Forum  for  some 
five  days,  while  the  ferment  in  the  city  continued  to  rage 
unabated.  The  funeral  was  at  length  fixed  for  March 
20th/  and  towards  evening  Antony  went  to  the  Forum, 
where  he  found  the  crowd  wailing  and  lamenting  around 
the  corpse,  the  soldiers  clashing  their  shields  together, 
and  the  women  uttering  their  plaintive  cries.  Antony  at 
once  began  to  sing  a  dirge-like  hymn  in  praise  of  Caesar ; 
pausing  in  his  song  every  few  moments  to  stretch  his 
hands  towards  the  corpse  and  to  break  into  loud  weeping. 
In  these  intervals  the  crowd  took  up  the  funeral  chant, 
and  gave  vent  to  their  emotional  distress  in  the  melan- 
choly music  customary  at  the  obsequies  of  the  dead, 
reciting  monotonously  a  verse  of  Accius  which  ran,  "  I 
saved  those  who  have  given  me  death."  Presently 
Antony  held  up  on  a  spear's  point  the  robes  pierced 
by  so  many  dagger-thrusts;  and  standing  beside  this 
gruesome  relic  of  the  crime,  he  pronounced  his  famous 
funeral  oration  over  the  body  of  the  murdered  Dictator. 
When  he  had  told  the  people  of  Caesar's  gifts  to  them, 
and  had  worked  upon  their  feelings  by  exhibiting  thus 
the  blood-stained  garments,  the  mob  broke  into  a  frenzy 
of  rage  against  the  conspirators,  vowing  vengeance  upon 
one  and  all.  Somebody  recalled  the  speech  made  by 
Cinna  on  a  previous  day,  and  immediately  howls  were 
raised  for  that  orator's  blood.  A  minor  poet,  also  called 
Cinna,  happened  to  be  standing  in  the  crowd ;  and  when 

^  Ferrero  has  shown  that"  March  19th  was  a  day  of  feriae  publicae,  when  the 
funeral  could  not  take  place.  It  could  not  well  have  been  postponed  later  than 
the  next  day  after  this. 

N 


194     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


a  friend  of  his  had  addressed  him  by  that  hated  name, 
the  people  in  the  immediate  vicinity  thought  that  he 
must  be  the  villain  for  whose  life  the  mob  was  shouting. 
They  therefore  caught  hold  of  the  unfortunate  man,  and, 
without   further   inquiries,  tore  him  limb  from  limb. 
They  then  seized  benches,  tables,  and  all  available  wood- 
work ;  and  there,  in  the  midst  of  the  public  and  sacred 
buildings,  they  erected  a  huge  pyre,  upon  the  top  of 
which  they  placed  the  Dictator's  body,  laid  out  upon 
a  sheet  of  purple  and  gold.    Torches  were  applied  and 
speedily  the  flames  arose,  illuminating  the  savage  faces 
of  the  crowd  around  the  pyre,  and  casting  grotesque 
shadows  upon  the  gleaming  walls  and  pillars  of  the 
adjoining  buildings,  while  the  volume  of  the  smoke  hid 
from  view  the  moon  now  rising  above  the  surrounding 
roofs  and   pediments.     Soon  the  mutilated  body  dis- 
appeared from  sight  into  the  heart  of  the  fire;  and 
thereupon  the  spectators,  plucking  flaming  brands  from 
the  blaze,  dashed  down  the  streets,  with  the  purpose 
of  burning  the  houses  of  the  conspirators.    The  funeral 
pyre  continued  to  smoulder  all  night  long,  and  it  must 
have  been  many  hours  before  quiet  was  restored  in  the 
city.    The  passions  of  the  mob  were  appeased  next  day 
by  the  general  co-operation  of  all  those  concerned  in 
public  affairs,  and  the  Senate  passed  what  was  known  as 
an  Act  of  Oblivion  in  regard  to  all  that  had  occurred. 
Brutus,  Cassius,  and  the  chief  conspirators,  were  assigned 
to  positions  of  importance  in  the  provinces  far  away  from 
Rome ;  and  the  affairs  of  the  capital  were  left,  for  the 
most  part,  in  the  hands  of  Antony.  On  March  i8th,  three 
days  after  Caesar's  death,  Antony  and  Lepidus  calmly 
invited  Brutus  and  Cassius  to  a  great  dinner-party,  and 
so,  for  the  moment,  peace  was  restored. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  195 


Meanwhile,  Cleopatra's  state  of  mind  must  have  been 
appalling.  Not  only  had  she  lost  her  dearest  friend  and 
former  lover,  but,  with  his  death,  she  had  lost  the  vast 
kingdom  which  he  had  promised  her.  No  longer  was 
she  presumptive  Queen  of  the  Earth,  but  now,  in  a 
moment,  she  was  once  more  simply  sovereign  of  Egypt, 
seated  upon  an  unfirm  throne.  Moreover,  she  must  have 
fancied  that  her  own  life  was  in  danger,  as  well  as  that 
of  the  little  Caesar.  The  contents  of  the  Dictator's  will 
must  have  been  a  further  shock  to  her,  although  she 
probably  already  knew  their  tenor;  and  she  must  have 
thought  with  bitterness  of  the  difference  that  even  one 
day  more  might  have  made  to  her  in  this  regard.  It 
was  perhaps  true  that  the  Senate  had  been  about  to 
offer  him  the  throne  of  the  provinces  on  the  fatal  Ides ; 
and  in  that  case  Caesar  would  most  certainly  have  altered 
his  will  to  meet  the  new  situation,  if  indeed  he  had  not 
already  done  so,  as  some  say.  There  was  reason  to 
suppose  that  such  a  will,  in  favour  of  Caesarion,  had 
actually  been  made,^  but  if  this  were  so,  it  was  nowhere 
to  be  found,  and  had  perhaps  been  destroyed  by  Cal- 
purnia.  What  was  she  to  do  ?  When  would  Octavian 
appear  to  claim  such  property  and  honours  as  Caesar 
had  bequeathed  to  him  ?  Should  she  at  once  proclaim 
her  baby  son  as  the  rightful  heir,  or  should  she  fly  the 
country  ? 

In  this  dilemma  there  seems  to  me  to  be  no  doubt 
that  she  must  have  consulted  with  Antony,  the  one 
man  who  had  firmly  grasped  the  tangled  strings  of  the 
situation,  and  must  have  implored  him  to  support  the 
claims  of  her  son.  If  the  public  would  not  admit  that 
Caesarion  was  Caesar's  son,  then  the  boy  would,  with- 

'  Page  170. 


196     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


out  doubt,  pass  into  insignificance,  and  ultimately  be 
deprived,  in  all  probability,  even  of  his  Egyptian  throne. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  with  Antony's  support,  he  were 
officially  recognised  to  be  the  Dictator's  child,  then  there 
was  a  good  chance  that  the  somewhat  unprepossessing 
Octavian  might  be  pushed  aside  for  ever.  Caesar  had 
taken  a  fancy  to  this  obscure  nephew  of  his  during  the 
Spanish  War.  The  young  man,  although  still  weak  after 
a  severe  illness,  had  set  out  to  join  the  Dictator  in  Spain 
with  a  promptitude  which  had  won  his  admiration.  He 
had  suffered  shipwreck,  and  had  ultimately  made  his  way 
to  his  uncle's  camp  by  roads  infested  with  the  enemy, 
and  thereafter  had  fought  by  his  side.  He  was  now 
following  his  studies  in  Apollonia,  and  intended  to  join 
Caesar  on  his  way  to  the  East.  If  he  could  be  prevented 
from  coming  to  Rome  the  game  would  be  in  the  Queen's 
hands ;  and  I  am  of  opinion  that  she  must  now  have 
approached  Antony  with  some  such  suggestion  for  the 
solution  of  the  difBculty.  Antony,  on  his  part,  probably 
realised  that  with  the  establishment  of  Octavian  in 
Caesar's  seat  his  own  power  would  vanish ;  but  that, 
were  he  to  support  the  baby  Csesarion,  he  himself  would 
remain  the  all-powerful  regent  for  many  years  to  come. 
He  might  even  take  the  dead  man's  place  as  Cleopatra's 
husband,  and  climb  to  the  throne  by  means  of  the  right 
of  his  stepson.^ 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  he  persuaded  Cleopatra 
to  remain  for  the  present  in  Rome ;  and  not  long  after- 
wards he  declared  in  the  Senate  that  the  little  Cassarion 
had  been  acknowledged  by  Caesar  to  be  his  rightful  son. 
This  was  denied  at  once  by  Oppius,  who  favoured  the 

1  Which,  as  will  be  seen,  he  ultimately  attempted  to  do. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  197 


claims  of  Octavian,  and  ultimately  this  personage  took 
the  trouble  to  write  a  short  book  to  refute  Antony's 
statement. 

The  young  Dolabella  now  seized  the  consulship  in 
Rome,  and,  being  on  bad  terms  with  Antony,  at  once 
showed  his  hostility  to  the  friends  of  the  late  Dictator 
by  various  acts  of  violence  against  them.  Caesar,  before 
his  death,  had  assigned  the  province  of  Syria  to  Dola- 
bella and  that  of  Macedonia  to  Antony ;  but  now  the 
Senate,  in  order  to  rid  Rome  of  the  troublesome  pres- 
ence of  the  Dictator's  murderers,  had  given  Macedonia 
and  Syria  to  Marcus  Brutus  and  Cassius,  and  these  two 
men  were  now  collecting  troops  with  which  to  enter 
their  dominions  in  safety.  There  was  thus  a  political 
reason  for  Antony  and  Dolabella  to  join  forces ;  and 
presently  we  find  the  two  of  them  working  together  for 
the  overthrow  of  Brutus  and  Cassius. 

Into  these  troubled  scenes  in  Rome  the  news  presently 
penetrated  of  the  approach  of  the  young  Octavian,  now 
nearly  nineteen  years  of  age,  who  was  coming  to  claim 
his  rights ;  and  thereupon  the  city,  setting  aside  the 
question  of  the  conspirators,  formed  itself  into  two 
factions,  the  one  supporting  the  newcomer,  the  other 
upholding  Antony's  attitude.  It  is  usually  stated  by 
historians  that  Antony  was  fighting  solely  in  his  own 
interests,  being  desirous  of  ousting  Octavian  and  assum- 
ing the  dignities  of  Caesar  by  force  of  arms.  If  this  be 
so,  why  did  he  make  a  point  of  declaring  in  the  Senate 
that  Caesarion  was  the  Dictator's  child  ?  With  what 
claims  upon  the  public  did  he  oppose  those  of  Octavian 
if  not  by  the  supporting  of  Caesar's  son  ?  We  shall  see 
that  in  after  years  he  always  claimed  the  Roman  throne 


igS     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


on  behalf  of  the  child  Cassarion ;  and  I  find  it  difficult 
to  suppose  that  that  attitude  was  not  already  assumed, 
to  some  extent,  by  him. 

There  now  began  to  be  grave  fears  of  the  immediate 
outbreak  of  civil  war ;  and  so  threatening  was  the  situa- 
tion that  Cleopatra  was  advised  to  leave  Rome  and  to 
return  to  Egypt  with  her  son,  there  to  await  the  out- 
come of  the  struggle.  It  is  probable,  indeed,  that  Antony 
urged  her  to  return  to  her  own  country  in  order  to  raise 
troops  and  ships  for  his  cause.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the 
Queen  left  Rome  a  few  days  before  April  15th,  upon 
which  date  Cicero  wrote  to  Atticus,  from  Sinuessa,  not 
far  from  Rome,  commenting  on  the  news  that  she  had 
fled. 

As  she  sailed  over  the  Mediterranean  back  to  Egypt 
her  mind  must  have  been  besieged  by  a  hundred  schemes 
and  plans  for  the  future.  The  despair  which  she  had 
experienced,  after  the  death  of  the  Dictator,  at  the 
demolition  of  all  her  vast  hopes,  may  now  have  given 
place  to  a  spirited  desire  to  begin  the  fight  once  more. 
Caesar  was  dead,  but  his  great  personality  would  live 
again  in  his  little  son,  whom  Antony,  she  believed,  would 
champion,  since  in  doing  so  he  would  further  his  own 
ambitions.  The  legions  left  at  Alexandria  by  the  Dic- 
tator would,  no  doubt,  stand  by  her ;  and  she  would 
bring  all  the  might  and  all  the  wealth  of  Egypt  against 
the  power  of  Octavian.  The  coming  warfare  would  be 
waged  by  her  for  the  creation  of  that  throne  for  the 
establishment  of  which  Caesar  had  indeed  given  his  life; 
and  her  arms  would  be  directed  against  that  form  of 
democratic  government  which  the  Dictator,  perhaps  at 
her  instance,  had  endeavoured  to  overthrow,  but  which 
a  man  of  Octavian's  character,  she  supposed,  would  be 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  199 


contented  to  support.  Her  mighty  Caesar  would  look 
down  from  his  place  amidst  the  stars  to  direct  her,  and 
to  lead  their  son  to  the  goal  of  their  ambitions ;  for 
now  he  was  in  very  truth  a  god  amongst  the  gods. 
Recently  during  seven  days  a  comet  had  been  seen 
blazing  in  the  sky,  and  all  men  had  been  convinced 
that  this  was  the  soul  of  the  murdered  Dictator  rushing 
headlong  to  heaven.  Even  now  a  strange  haze  hung 
over  the  sun,  as  though  the  light  of  that  celestial  body 
were  dimmed  by  the  approach  of  the  Divine  Caesar. 
Before  the  Queen  left  Rome  she  had  heard  the  priests 
and  public  officials  name  him  God  in  very  truth ; 
and  maybe  she  had  already  seen  his  statues  embel- 
lished by  the  star  of  divinity  which  was  set  upon  his 
brow  after  his  death.  Surely  now  he  would  not  desert 
her,  his  Queen  and  his  fellow-divinity;  nor  would  he 
suffer  their  royal  son  to  pass  into  obscurity.  From  his 
exalted  heights  he  would  defend  her  with  his  thunder- 
bolts, and  come  down  to  her  aid  upon  the  wings  of  the 
wind.  Thus  there  was  no  cause  for  her  to  despair ; 
and  with  that  wonderful  optimism  which  seems  to  have 
characterised  her  nature,  she  now  set  her  active  brain 
to  thoughts  of  the  future,  turning  her  mature  intellect 
to  the  duties  which  lay  before  her.  When  Caesar  had 
met  her  in  Egypt  she  had  been  an  irresponsible  girl. 
Now  she  was  a  keen-brained  woman,  endowed  with  the 
fire  and  the  pluck  of  her  audacious  dynasty,  and  pre- 
pared to  fight  her  way  with  all  their  unscrupulous  energy 
to  the  summit  of  her  ambitions.  And,  moreover,  now 
she  held  the  trump  card  in  her  hands  in  the  person  of 
her  little  boy,  who  was  by  all  natural  laws  the  rightful 
heir  to  the  throne  of  the  earth. 


PART  II. 
CLEOPATRA  AND  ANTONY 


CHAPTER 


XI. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  ANTONY  AND  HIS  RISE  TO  POWER. 

When  Antony  and  Octavian  first  met  after  the  death 
of  Caesar,  the  former  was  in  possession  of  popular  con- 
fidence ;  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  advise  Octavian  to 
make  no  attempt  to  claim  his  inheritance.  He  snubbed 
the  young  man,  telling  him  that  he  was  mad  to  think 
himself  capable  of  assuming  the  responsibilities  of  the 
Dictator's  heir  at  so  early  an  age ;  and  as  a  result  of 
this  attitude  dissensions  speedily  broke  out  between 
them.  A  reconciliation,  however,  was  arrived  at  in  the 
following  August,  B.C.  44 ;  but  early  in  October  there 
was  much  talk  in  regard  to  a  supposed  attempt  by 
Octavian  upon  the  life  of  Antony,  and,  as  a  result  of 
this,  the  inevitable  quarrel  once  more  broke  out.  Antony 
now  spread  the  story  that  his  young  rival  had  only  been 
adopted  by  Caesar  in  consequence  of  their  immoral  rela- 
tions, and  he  accused  him  of  being  a  low-born  adventurer. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  year  Antony  left  Rome,  and  all 
men  believed  that  yet  another  civil  war  was  about  to 
break  out.  He  was  now  proclaiming  himself  the  avenger 
of  the  late  Dictator,  and  I  think  it  possible  that  he  had 
decided  definitely  to  advance  the  claims  of  Cleopatra's 
son,  Caesarion,  against  those  of  Octavian.    After  many 


204     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


vicissitudes  he  was  attacked  and  hunted  as  an  enemy 
of  Rome,  and  the  triumph  of  Octavian,  thanks  to  the 
assistance  of  Cicero,  seemed  to  be  assured ;  but,  owing 
to  a  series  of  surprising  incidents,  which  we  need  not 
here  relate,  a  reconcihation  was  at  last  effected  between 
the  combatants  in  October,  B.C.  43.  The  two  men,  who 
had  not  met  for  many  months,  regarded  one  another 
with  such  extreme  suspicion  that  when  at  length  they 
were  obliged  to  exchange  the  embrace  of  friendship, 
they  are  each  said  to  have  taken  the  opportunity  of 
feeling  the  other's  person  to  ascertain  that  no  sword 
or  dagger  was  concealed  under  the  folds  of  the  toga. 

As  soon  as  the  reconciliation  had  been  established, 
Antony,  Octavian,  and  a  certain  Lepidus  formed  a 
Triumvirate,  which  was  to  have  effect  until  December  31, 
B.C.  38,  it  being  agreed  that  Rome  and  Italy  should  be 
governed  jointly  by  the  three,  but  that  the  provinces 
should  fall  under  distinctive  controls,  Antony  and  Lepidus 
sharing  the  larger  portion  and  Octavian  receiving  only 
Africa,  Numidia,  and  the  islands.  It  was  then  decided 
that  they  should  each  rid  themselves  of  their  enemies 
by  a  general  proscription  and  massacre.  A  list  was 
drawn  up  of  one  hundred  senators  and  about  two 
thousand  other  rich  and  prominent  men,  and  these  were 
hunted  down  and  murdered  in  the  most  ruthless  fashion, 
amidst  scenes  of  horror  which  can  hardly  have  been 
equalled  in  the  world's  history.  Cicero  was  one  of  the 
victims  who  suffered  for  his  animosity  to  Antony,  who 
was  now  the  leading  Triumvir,  and  was  in  a  position 
to  refuse  to  consider  Octavian's  plea  for  mercy  for  the 
orator.  The  property  of  the  proscribed  persons  was 
seized,  and  upon  these  ill-gotten  riches  the  three  men 
thrived  and  conducted  their  government. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  205 


Brutus  and  Cassius,  the  two  leaders  of  the  conspiracy 
which  had  caused  Caesar's  death,  had  now  come  to  blows 
with  Antony  and  Octavian,  and  were  collecting  an  army 
in  Macedonia.  Cassius,  at  one  time,  thought  of  invading 
Egypt  in  order  to  obtain  possession  of  Cleopatra's  money 
and  ships ;  but  the  Queen,  who  was  holding  herself  in 
readiness  for  all  eventualities,  was  saved  from  this  mis- 
fortune. She  was,  of  course,  the  bitter  enemy  of  Brutus 
and  Cassius,  the  murderers  of  her  beloved  Caesar;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  she  could  not  well  throw  in  her  lot 
with  the  Triumvirate,  since  it  included  Octavian,  who 
was  the  rival  of  her  son  Caesarion  in  the  heirship  of  the 
Dictator's  estate.  She  must  have  been  much  troubled 
by  the  reconciliation  between  Octavian  and  Antony,  for 
it  seemed  to  show  that  she  could  no  longer  rely  on  the 
latter  to  act  as  her  champion. 

Presently  Dolabella,  who  was  now  friendly  to  Antony 
and  opposed  to  Brutus  and  Cassius,  asked  Cleopatra  to 
send  to  his  aid  the  legions  left  by  the  Dictator  in 
Alexandria,  and  at  about  the  same  time  a  similar  request 
came  from  Cassius.  Cleopatra  very  naturally  declined 
the  latter,  accepting  Dolabella's  request.  Cassius,  how- 
ever, managed  to  obtain  from  Serapion,  the  Queen's 
viceroy  in  Cyprus,  a  number  of  Egyptian  ships,  which 
were  handed]  over  without  her  permission.^  Dolabella 
was  later  defeated  by  Cassius,  but  the  disaster  did  not 
seriously  affect  Cleopatra,  for  her  legions  had  not 
managed  to  reach  him  in  time  to  be  destroyed.  The 
Queen's  next  move  was  naturally  hostile  to  her  enemy 

1  See  page  235,  where  I  suggest  that  Serapion  had  possibly  decided  to 
throw  in  his  lot  with  Arsinoe,  who  perhaps  claimed  the  kingdom  of  Cyprus, 
and  to  assist  the  party  of  Brutus  and  Cassius  against  that  of  Antony  which 
Cleopatra  would  probably  support. 


2o6     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Cassius.  She  made  an  attempt  to  join  Antony.  This 
manoeuvre,  however,  was  undertaken  half-heartedly,  owing 
to  her  uncertainty  as  to  his  relations  with  Octavian,  her 
son's  rival ;  and  when  a  serious  storm  had  arisen,  wreck- 
ing many  of  her  ships  and  prostrating  her  with  sea- 
sickness, she  abandoned  the  attempt. 

In  October  of  B.C.  42  Antony  defeated  Brutus  and 
Cassius  at  the  battle  of  Philippi,  Cassius  being  killed 
and  Brutus  committing  suicide.  Octavian,  who  was  ill, 
took  little  part  in  the  battle,  and  all  the  glory  of  the 
victory  was  given  to  Antony.  The  unpopularity  of 
Octavian  was  clearly  demonstrated  after  the  fight  was 
over,  for  the  prisoners  who  were  led  before  the  two 
generals  saluted  Antony  with  respect,  but  cursed  Octavian 
in  the  foulest  language.  It  was  decided  that  Antony 
should  now  travel  through  the  East  to  collect  money  and 
to  assert  the  authority  of  the  Triumvirate,  while  Octavian 
should  attempt  to  restore  order  in  Italy,  the  African 
provinces  being  handed  over  to  the  insignificant  Lepidus. 
The  fact  that  Antony  chose  for  his  sphere  of  influence  the 
eastern  provinces,  is  a  clear  indication  that  Octavian  was 
still  in  the  background ;  for  these  rich  lands  constituted 
the  main  part  of  the  Roman  dominions.  With  a  large 
army  Antony  passed  on  his  triumphal  way  through 
Greece,  and  thence  through  Asia  Minor ;  and  at  length, 
in  the  late  summer  of  B.C.  41,  he  made  his  temporary 
headquarters  at  Tarsus. 

From  Tarsus  Antony  sent  a  certain  officer  named 
Dellius  to  Alexandria  to  invite  Cleopatra  to  meet  him  in 
order  to  discuss  the  situation.  It  was  suggested  by 
Antony  that  she  had  given  some  assistance  to  the  party 
of  Brutus  ;  but  she,  on  the  other  hand,  must  have  accused 
Antony  of  abandoning  her  by  his  league  with  Octavian. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  207 


She  could  not  afford  to  quarrel  with  him,  however,  for  he 
was  now  the  most  powerful  man  in  the  world  ;  and  she 
therefore  determined  to  sail  across  to  Tarsus  at  once. 

She  knew  already  the  kind  of  man  he  was.  She  had 
seen  him  in  Rome  on  many  occasions,  though  no  direct 
record  is  left  of  any  such  event,  and  she  had  probably 
made  some  sort  of  alliance  with  him ;  while  she  must 
constantly  have  heard  of  his  faults  and  his  virtues  both 
from  Julius  Cassar  and  from  her  Roman  friends.  The 
envoy  Dellius,  whom  he  had  sent  to  her,  had  told  her  of 
his  pacific  intentions,  and  had  described  him  as  the 
gentlest  and  kindest  of  soldiers,  while,  as  she  well  knew, 
a  considerable  part  of  the  world  called  him  a  good  fellow. 
He  was  at  that  time  the  most  conspicuous  figure  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  and  his  nature  and  personality  must 
have  formed  a  subject  of  interested  discussion  in  the 
palace  at  Alexandria  as  in  every  other  court.  Renan  has 
called  Antony  a  "  colossal  child,  capable  of  conquering  a 
world,  incapable  of  resisting  a  pleasure " ;  and  already 
this  must  have  been  the  popular  estimate  of  his  character. 
The  weight  of  his  stature  stood  over  the  nations,  dominat- 
ing the  incident  of  life;  and,  with  a  kind  of  boisterous 
divinity,  his  hand  played  alike  with  kings  and  common 
soldiers.  To  many  men  he  was  a  good-natured  giant,  a 
personification  of  Bacchus,  the  Giver  of  Joy  ;  but  in  the 
ruined  lands  upon  which  he  had  trampled  he  was  named 
the  Devourer,  and  the  fear  of  him  was  almighty. 

He  was  a  man  of  remarkable  appearance.  Tall,  and 
heavily  built,  his  muscles  developed  like  those  of  a 
gladiator,  and  his  thick  hair  curling  about  his  head, 
he  reminded  those  who  saw  him  of  the  statues  and 
paintings  of  Hercules,  from  whom  he  claimed  lineal 
descent.    His  forehead  was  broad,  his  nose  aquiline,  and 


2o8     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


his  mouth  and  chin,  though  somewhat  heavy,  were  strong 
and  well  formed.  His  expression  was  open  and  frank ; 
and  there  was  a  suggestion  of  good-humour  about  his  lips 
and  eyes  (as  seen  in  the  Vatican  bust)  ^  which  must  have 
been  most  engaging.  His  physical  strength  and  his 
noble  appearance  evoked  an  unbounded  admiration 
amongst  his  fellow -men,  whilst  to  most  women  his 
masculine  attraction  was  irresistible :  a  power  of  which 
he  made  ungoverned  use.  Cicero,  who  was  his  most 
bitter  enemy,  described  him  as  a  sort  of  butcher  or  prize- 
fighter, with  his  heavy  jaw,  powerful  neck,  and  mighty 
flanks  ;  but  this,  perhaps,  is  a  natural,  and  certainly  an 
easy,  misinterpretation  of  features  that  may  well  have 
inspired  envy. 

His  nature,  in  spite  of  many  gross  faults,  was  unusually 
lovable.  He  was  adored  by  his  soldiers,  who,  it  is  said, 
preferred  his  good  opinion  of  them  to  their  very  lives. 
This  devotion,  says  Plutarch,  was  due  to  many  causes : 
to  the  nobility  of  his  family,  his  eloquence,  his  frank  and 
open  manners,  his  liberal  and  magnificent  habits,  his 
familiarity  in  talking  with  everybody,  and  his  kindness  in 
visiting  and  pitying  the  sick  and  joining  in  all  their 
pains.  After  a  battle  he  would  go  from  tent  to  tent  to 
comfort  the  wounded,  himself  breaking  into  a  very  passion 
of  grief  at  the  sufferings  of  his  men ;  and  they,  with 
radiant  faces,  would  seize  his  hands  and  call  him  their 
emperor  and  their  general.  The  simplicit)'  of  his 
character  commanded  affection ;  for,  amidst  the  deep 
complexities  and  insincerities  of  human  life,  an  open  and 
inteUigible  nature  is  always  most  eagerly  appreciated. 

*  Found  at  Tor  Sapienza,  outside  the  Porta  Maggiore.  The  best  gold  and 
silver  coins  of  Antony,  issued  by  Cnaeus  Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  correspond 
with  the  bust  in  all  essentials. 


Vatican.]  [Photograph  by  Andersen. 

ANTONY. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  209 


The  abysmal  intellect  of  the  genius  gives  delight  to  the 
highly  cultured,  but  to  the  average  man  the  child-like 
frankness  of  an  Antony  makes  a  greater  appeal.  Antony 
was  not  a  genius :  he  was  a  gigantic  commonplace. 
One  sees  in  him  an  ordinary  man  in  extraordinary 
circumstances,  dominating  success  and  towering  above 
misfortune,  until  at  the  end  he  gives  way  unmeritoriously 
to  the  pressure  of  events. 

The  naturalness  and  ingenuousness  of  his  character  are 
surprisingly  apparent  in  some  of  the  anecdotes  related  by 
Plutarch.  His  wife,  Fulvia,  is  described  as  a  matron  "  not 
born  for  spinning  or  housewifery,  nor  one  who  could  be 
content  with  ruling  a  private  husband,  but  a  woman 
prepared  to  govern  a  first  magistrate  or  give  orders  to 
a  commander-in-chief."  To  keep  this  strong-minded 
woman  in  a  good-humour  the  guileless  Antony  was  wont 
to  play  upon  her  all  manner  of  boyish  pranks ;  and  it 
would  seem  that  he  took  delight  in  bouncing  out  at  her 
from  dark  corners  of  the  house  and  the  like.  When 
Caesar  was  returning  from  the  war  in  Spain  a  rumour 
spread  that  he  had  been  defeated  and  that  the  enemy 
were  marching  on  Rome.  Antony  had  gone  out  to  meet 
his  chief,  and  found  in  this  rumour  an  opportunity  for 
another  practical  joke  at  his  stern  wife's  expense.  He 
therefore  disguised  himself  as  a  camp-follower  and  made 
his  way  back  to  his  house,  to  which  he  obtained  admit- 
tance by  declaring  that  he  had  a  terribly  urgent  letter 
from  Antony  to  deliver  into  Fulvia's  hands.  He  was 
shown  into  the  presence  of  the  agitated  matron,  and 
stood  there  before  her,  a  muffled,  mysterious  figure,  no 
doubt  much  like  a  Spanish  brigand  in  a  modern  comic 
opera.  Fulvia  asked  dramatically  if  aught  had  befallen 
her  husband,  but,  without  replying,  the  silent  figure 

o 


210     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


thrust  a  letter  at  her ;  and  then,  as  she  was  nervously 
opening  it,  he  suddenly  dashed  aside  the  cloak,  took  her 
about  the  neck,  and  kissed  her.  After  which  he  returned 
to  Caesar,  and  entered  Rome  in  the  utmost  pomp,  riding 
in  the  Dictator's  chariot  with  all  the  solemnity  befitting 
the  occasion. 

In  later  years  he  was  constantly  playing  such  tricks  at 
Alexandria,  and  in  the  company  of  Cleopatra  he  was 
wont  to  wander  about  the  city  at  night,  disguised  as  a 
servant,  and  used  to  disturb  and  worr)'  his  friends  by 
tapping  at  their  doors  and  windows,  for  which,  says 
Plutarch,  he  was  often  scurvily  treated  and  even  beaten, 
though  most  people  guessed  who  he  was.  Antony 
remained  a  boy  all  his  days ;  and  it  must  have  been 
largely  this  boisterous  inconsequence  during  the  most 
anxious  periods  that  gave  an  air  of  Bacchic  divinity  to 
his  personality.  His  friends  must  have  thought  that 
there  was  surely  a  touch  of  the  divine  in  one  who  could 
romp  through  times  of  peril  as  he  did. 

He  allowed  little  to  stand  in  the  way  of  his  pleasures ; 
and  he  played  at  empire-making  as  it  were  between 
meals.  On  a  certain  morning  in  Rome  it  was  necessary 
for  him  to  make  an  important  public  speech  while  he  was 
yet  suffering  from  the  effects  of  immoderate  drinking  all 
night  at  the  wedding  of  Hippias,  a  comedian,  who  was  a 
particular  friend  of  his.  Standing  unsteadily  before  the 
eager  political  audience,  he  was  about  to  begin  his 
address  when  he  was  overcome  with  nausea,  and  out- 
raged nature  was  revenged  upon  him  in  the  sight  of  all 
men.  Incidents  of  this  kind  made  him  at  times,  as 
Cicero  states,  absolutely  odious  to  the  upper  classes  in 
Rome ;  but  it  is  necessary  to  state  that  the  above- 
mentioned  accident  occurred  when  he  was  still  a  young 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  211 


man,  and  that  his  excesses  were  not  so  crude  in  later 
years.  During  the  greater  part  of  his  life  his  feasting 
and  drinking  were  intemperate ;  but  there  is  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  he  was,  except  perhaps  towards  the  end  of 
his  life,  besotted  to  a  chronic  extent.  One  does  not 
picture  him  imbibing  continuously  or  secretly  in  the 
manner  of  an  habitual  drunkard ;  but  at  feasts  and 
ceremonies  he  swallowed  the  wine  with  a  will  and  drank 
with  any  man.  When  food  and  wine  were  short,  as 
often  happened  during  his  campaigns,  Antony  became 
abstemious  without  effort.  Once  when  Cicero  had  caused 
him  and  his  legions  to  be  driven  out  of  Rome,  he  gave,  in 
Plutarch's  words,  "  a  most  wonderful  example  to  his 
soldiers.  He  who  had  just  quitted  so  much  luxury  and 
sumptuous  living,  made  no  difficulty  now  of  drinking  foul 
water  and  feeding  on  wild  fruits  and  roots." 

Antony  was,  of  course,  something  of  a  barbarian,  and 
his  excesses  often  put  one  in  mind  of  the  habits  of  the 
Goths  or  Vikings.  He  drank  hard,  jested  uproariously, 
was  on  occasion  brutal,  enjoyed  the  love  of  women, 
brawled  like  a  schoolboy,  and  probably  swore  like  a 
trooper.  But  with  it  all  he  retained  until  some  two 
years  before  his  death  a  very  fair  capacity  for  hard 
work,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  he  was  Julius 
Cajsar's  right-hand  man,  and  afterwards  absolute  auto- 
crat of  the  East.  His  nature  was  so  forceful,  and  yet 
his  character  so  built  up  of  the  magnified  virtues  and 
failings  of  mankind,  that  by  his  very  resemblance  to 
the  ordinary  soldier,  his  conformity  to  the  type  of  the 
average  citizen,  he  won  an  absolute  ascendancy  over 
the  minds  of  normal  men.  It  touched  the  vanity  of 
every  individual  that  a  man,  by  the  exercise  of  brains 
and  faculties  no  greater  than  his  own,  was  become  lord 


212     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


of  half  the  world.  It  was  no  prodigious  intellectual 
genius  who  ruled  the  earth  with  incomprehensible 
ability,  but  a  burly,  virile,  simple,  brave,  vulgar  man. 
It  was  related  with  satisfaction  that  when  Antony  was 
shown  the  little  senate-house  at  Megara,  which  seems 
to  have  been  an  ancient  architectural  gem  of  which  the 
cultured  inhabitants  were  justly  proud,  he  told  them 
that  it  was  "not  very  large,  but  extremely  ruinous" — 
a  remark  which  recalls  the  comment  of  the  American 
tourist  in  Oxford,  that  the  buildings  were  very  much 
out  of  repair.  A  little  honest  Philistinism  is  a  very 
useful  thing. 

A  touch  of  purple,  too,  as  Stevenson  has  reminded 
us,  is  not  without  its  value.  Antony  was  always  some- 
thing of  an  actor,  and  enjoyed  a  display  in  a  manner 
as  theatrical  as  it  was  unforced.  When  he  made  his 
public  orations,  he  attempted  to  attract  the  eye  of  his 
audience  at  the  same  time  that  he  tickled  their  ears. 
In  his  famous  funeral  oration  after  the  death  of  Caesar, 
we  have  seen  how  he  exhibited,  at  the  psychological 
moment,  the  gory  clothes  of  the  murdered  Dictator, 
showing  to  the  crowd  the  holes  made  by  the  daggers 
of  the  assassins  and  the  stains  of  his  blood.  Desiring 
to  make  a  profound  effect  upon  his  harassed  troops 
during  the  retreat  from  Media,  he  clothed  himself  in  a 
dismal  mourning  habit,  and  was  only  with  difficulty 
persuaded  by  his  officers  to  change  it  for  the  scarlet 
cloak  of  a  general.  He  enjoyed  dressing  himself  to 
suit  the  part  of  a  Hercules,  for  which  nature,  indeed, 
had  already  caused  him  to  be  cast ;  and  in  public  as- 
semblies he  would  often  appear  with  "his  tunic  girt 
low  about  his  hips,  a  broadsword  at  his  side,  and  over 
all  a  large,  coarse  mantle,"  cutting,  one  may  suppose. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  213 


a  very  fine  figure.  In  cultured  Athens  he  thought  it 
was  perhaps  more  fitting  to  present  himself  in  a  pacific 
guise,  and  we  find  him  at  the  public  games  clad  in 
the  gown  and  white  shoes  of  a  steward,  the  wands  of 
that  gentle  office  carried  before  him.  On  this  occasion, 
however,  he  introduced  the  herculean  role  to  this  ex- 
tent, that  he  parted  the  combatants  by  seizing  the 
scruff  of  their  necks  and  holding  them  from  one 
another  at  arm's  length.  In  later  life  his  love  of 
display  led  him  into  strange  habits ;  and,  while  he 
was  often  clothed  in  the  guise  of  Bacchus,  his  garments 
for  daily  use  were  of  the  richest  purple,  and  were 
clasped  with  enormous  jewels. 

The  glamour  of  the  stage  always  appealed  to  his 
nature,  and  he  found,  moreover,  that  the  society  of 
players  and  comedians  held  peculiar  attractions  for 
him.  The  actor  Sergius  was  one  of  his  best  friends 
in  Rome ;  and  he  was  so  proud  of  his  acquaintance 
with  an  actress  named  Cytheris  that  he  often  invited 
her  to  accompany  him  upon  some  excursion,  and 
assigned  to  her  a  litter  not  inferior  to  that  of  his  own 
mother,  which  might  have  been  extremely  galling  to 
the  elder  lady.  On  these  journeys  he  would  cause 
pavilions  to  be  erected,  and  sumptuous  repasts  pre- 
pared under  the  trees  beside  the  Tiber,  his  guests 
being  served  with  priceless  wines  in  golden  cups. 
When  he  made  his  more  public  progress  through  the 
land  a  very  circus -show  accompanied  him,  and  the 
populace  were  entertained  by  the  spectacle  of  buffoons, 
musicians,  and  chariots  drawn  by  lions.  On  these 
journeys  Cytheris  would  often  accompany  him,  as 
though  to  amuse  him,  and  a  number  of  dancing-girls 
and  singers  would  form  part  of  his  retinue.    At  the 


214     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


night's  halt,  the  billeting  of  these  somewhat  surprising 
young  women  in  the  houses  of  "  serious  fathers  and 
mothers  of  families,"  as  Plutarch  puts  it,  caused  much 
resentment,  and  suggested  an  attitude  of  mind  in 
Antony  which  cannot  altogether  be  attributed  to  a 
boyish  desire  to  shock.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
he  enjoyed  upsetting  decorum,  and  took  kindly  to  those 
people  whom  others  considered  to  be  outcasts.  Like 
Charles  Lamb,  he  may  have  expressed  a  preference  for 
"  man  as  he  ought  not  to  be,"  which,  to  a  controlled 
and  limited  extent,  may  be  an  admirable  attitude.  But 
it  is  more  probable  that  actions  such  as  that  just  re- 
corded were  merely  thoughtless,  and  were  not  tempered 
by  much  consideration  for  the  feelings  of  others  until 
those  outraged  feelings  were  pointed  out  to  him,  where- 
upon, so  Plutarch  tells  us,  he  could  be  frankly  repentant. 

He  cared  little  for  public  opinion,  and  had  no  idea 
of  the  annoyance  and  distress  caused  by  his  actions. 
He  was  much  in  the  hands  of  his  courtiers  and  friends, 
and  so  long  as  all  about  him  appeared  to  be  happy  and 
jolly,  he  found  no  reason  for  further  inquiry.  While  in 
Asia  he  considered  it  needful  to  the  good  condition  of 
his  army  to  levy  a  tax  upon  the  cities  which  had  already 
paid  their  tribute  to  him,  and  orders  were  given  to  this 
effect,  without  the  matter  receiving  much  consideration 
by  him.  In  fact,  it  would  seem  that  the  first  tribute 
had  slipped  his  memory.  A  certain  Hybreas,  therefore, 
complained  to  him  in  the  name  of  the  Asiatic  cities, 
reminding  him  of  the  earlier  tax.  "  If  it  has  not  been 
paid  to  you,"  he  said,  "  ask  your  collectors  for  it ;  if  it 
has,  and  is  all  gone,  we  are  ruined  men."  Antony  at 
once  saw  the  sense  of  this,  realised  the  suffering  he  was 
about  to  cause,  and  being,  so  it  is  said,  touched  to  the 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  215 


quick,  promptly  made  other  arrangements.  Having  a 
very  good  opinion  of  himself,  and  being  in  a  rough 
sort  of  manner  much  flattered  by  his  friends,  he  was 
slow  to  see  his  own  faults;  but  when  he  was  of 
opinion  that  he  had  been  in  the  wrong,  he  became 
profoundly  repentant,  and  was  never  ashamed  of  ask- 
ing the  pardon  of  those  he  had  injured.  With  boyish 
extravagance  he  made  reparation  to  them,  lavishing 
gifts  upon  them  in  such  a  manner  that  his  generosity 
on  these  occasions  is  said  to  have  exceeded  by  far  his 
severity  on  others. 

He  was  at  all  times  generous,  both  to  his  friends  and 
to  his  enemies.  He  seems  to  have  inherited  this  quality 
from  his  father,  who,  from  the  brief  reference  to  him  in 
Plutarch,  appears  to  have  been  a  kindly  old  man,  some- 
what afraid  of  his  wife,  and  given  to  making  presents  to 
his  friends  behind  her  back.  Antony's  "generous  ways," 
says  Plutarch,  "  his  open  and  lavish  hand  in  gifts  and 
favours  to  his  friends  and  fellow-soldiers,  did  a  great 
deal  for  him  in  his  first  advance  to  power ;  and  after 
he  had  become  great,  long  maintained  his  fortunes, 
when  a  thousand  follies  were  hastening  their  over- 
throw." So  lavish  were  his  presents  to  his  friends  and 
his  hospitality  that  he  was  always  in  debt,  and  even  in 
his  early  manhood  he  owed  his  creditors  a  huge  fortune. 
He  had  little  idea  of  the  value  of  money,  and  his  ex- 
travagances were  the  talk  of  the  world.  On  one  occa- 
sion he  ordered  his  steward  to  pay  a  certain  large  sum 
of  money  to  one  of  his  needy  friends,  and  the  amount 
so  shocked  that  official  that  he  counted  it  out  in  small 
silver  decies,  which  he  caused  to  be  piled  into  a  heap 
in  a  conspicuous  place  where  it  should  catch  the  donor's 
eye,  and,  by  its  size,  cause  him  to  change  his  mind.  In 


2i6     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


due  course  Antony  came  upon  the  heap  of  money,  and 
asked  what  was  its  purpose.  The  steward  replied  in  a 
significant  tone  that  it  was  the  amount  which  was  to  be 
given  to  his  friend.  "  Oh,"  said  Antony,  quite  unmoved, 
"  I  should  have  thought  the  decies  would  have  been  much 
more.    It  is  too  little  :  let  the  amount  be  doubled." 

He  was  as  generous,  moreover,  in  his  dealings  as  in 
his  gifts.  After  his  Alexandrian  Triumph  he  did  not  put 
to  death  the  conquered  Armenian  King  Artavasdes,  who 
had  been  led  in  golden  chains  through  the  streets,  al- 
though such  an  execution  was  customary  according  to 
Roman  usage.  Just  previous  to  the  battle  of  Actium, 
the  consul  Domitius  Ahenobarbus  deserted  and  went 
over  to  Octavian,  leaving  behind  him  all  his  goods  and 
chattels  and  his  entire  retinue.  With  a  splendid  nobility 
Antony  sent  his  baggage  after  him,  not  deigning  to 
enrich  himself  at  the  expense  of  his  treacherous  friend, 
nor  to  revenge  himself  by  maltreating  any  of  those 
whom  the  consul  had  left  in  such  jeopardy.  After  the 
battle  of  Philippi,  Antony  was  eager  to  take  his  enemy, 
Brutus,  alive  ;  but  a  certain  officer  named  Lucilius  hero- 
ically prevented  this  by  pretending  to  be  the  defeated 
general,  and  by  giving  himself  up  to  Antony's  soldiers. 
The  men  brought  their  captive  in  triumph  to  Antony, 
but  as  soon  as  he  was  come  into  his  presence  he  ex- 
plained that  he  was  not  Brutus,  and  that  he  had  pre- 
tended to  be  so  in  order  to  save  his  master,  and  was 
now  prepared  to  pay  with  his  life  the  penalty  for  his 
deception.  Thereupon  Antony,  addressing  the  angry 
and  excited  crowd,  said :  "  I  see,  comrades,  that  you 
are  upset,  and  take  it  ill  that  you  have  been  thus 
deceived,  and  think  yourselves  abused  and  insulted  by 
it ;  but  you  must  know  that  you  have  met  with  a  prize 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  217 


better  than  that  you  sought.  For  you  were  in  search 
of  an  enemy,  but  you  have  brought  me  here  a  friend. 
And  of  this  I  am  sure,  that  it  is  better  to  have  such 
men  as  this  Lucilius  our  friends  than  our  enemies."  ^ 
And  with  these  words  he  embraced  the  brave  officer, 
and  gave  him  a  free  pardon.  Shortly  after  this,  when 
Brutus,  the  murderer  both  of  his  old  friend  Julius  Caesar 
and  of  his  own  brother  Caius,  had  committed  suicide, 
he  did  not  revenge  himself  upon  the  body  by  exposing 
it  to  insult,  as  was  so  often  done,  but  covered  it  decently 
with  his  own  scarlet  mantle,  and  gave  orders  that  it 
should  be  buried  at  his  private  expense  with  the 
honours  of  war.  Similarly,  after  the  capture  of  Pelusium 
and  the  defeat  and  death  of  Archelaus,  Antony  sought 
out  the  body  of  his  conquered  enemy  and  buried  it  with 
royal  honours.  In  his  earlier  years,  his  treatment  of 
Lepidus,  whose  army  he  had  won  over  from  him,  was 
courteous  in  the  extreme.  Although  absolute  master  of 
the  situation,  and  Lepidus  a  prisoner  in  his  hands,  he 
insisted  upon  the  fallen  general  remaining  commander 
of  the  army,  and  always  addressed  him  respectfully 
as  Father. 

Many  of  his  actions  were  due  to  a  kind  of  youthful 
impulsiveness.  He  gave  his  cook  a  fine  house  in  Mag- 
nesia— the  property,  by  the  way,  of  somebody  else — in 
reward  for  a  single  successful  supper.  This  impetuosity 
was  manifest  in  other  ways,  for,  by  its  nature,  which 
allowed  of  no  delay  in  putting  into  action  the  thought 
dominant  in  his  mind,  it  must  be  defined  as  a  kind  of 
impatience.  As  a  young  man  desiring  rapid  fame,  he 
had  suddenly  thrown  in  his  lot  with  Clodius,  "the  most 

*  It  is  satisfactory  to  read  that  Lucilius  remained  his  devoted  friend  until 
the  end. 


2i8     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


insolent  and  outrageous  demagogue  of  the  time,"  leading 
with  him  a  life  of  violence  and  disorder ;  and  as  suddenly 
he  had  severed  that  partnership,  going  to  Greece  to  study 
with  enthusiasm  the  polite  arts.  In  later  years  his  sudden 
invasion  of  Media,  with  such  haste  that  he  was  obliged 
to  leave  behind  him  all  his  engines  of  war,  is  the  most 
notable  example  of  this  impatience.  The  battle  of 
Actium,  which  ended  his  career,  was  lost  by  a  sudden 
impulse  on  his  part ;  and,  at  the  last,  the  taking  of  his 
own  life  was  to  some  extent  the  impatient  anticipation 
of  the  processes  of  nature. 

This  trait  in  his  character,  combined  with  an  inherent 
bravery,  caused  him  to  cut  a  very  dashing  figure  in  war- 
fare, and  when  fortune  was  with  him,  made  of  him  a 
brilliant  general.  He  stood  in  fear  of  nothing,  and 
dangers  seem  to  have  presented  themselves  to  him  as 
pleasant  relaxations  of  the  humdrum  of  life.  In  the 
battle  which  opened  the  war  against  Aristobulus  he 
was  the  first  man  to  scale  the  enemy's  works ;  and  in 
a  pitched  battle  he  routed  a  force  far  larger  than  his 
own,  took  Aristobulus  and  his  son  prisoners,  and,  like 
an  avenging  deity,  slaughtered  almost  the  entire  hostile 
army.  At  another  time  his  dash  across  the  desert  to 
Pelusium,  and  his  brilliant  capture  of  that  fortress, 
brought  him  considerable  fame.  Again,  in  the  war 
against  Pompey,  "  there  was  not  one  of  the  many 
battles,"  says  Plutarch,  "  in  which  he  did  not  signalise 
himself :  twice  he  stopped  the  army  in  its  full  flight, 
led  them  back  to  a  charge,  and  gained  the  victory,  so 
that  .  .  .  his  reputation,  next  to  Caesar's,  was  the  greatest 
in  the  army."  In  the  disastrous  retreat  from  Media  he 
showed  the  greatest  bravery ;  and  it  was  no  common 
courage   that   allowed  him,  after  the  horrors  of  the 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  219 


march  back  to  Armenia,  to  prepare  for  a  second  cam- 
paign. 

His  generalship  was  not  extraordinarily  skilful,  though 
it  is  true  that  at  Pharsalia  Caesar  placed  him  in  com- 
mand of  the  left  wing  of  the  army,  himself  taking  the 
right ;  but  his  great  courage,  and  the  confidence  and 
devotion  which  he  inspired  in  his  men,  served  to  make 
him  a  trustworthy  commander.  His  popularity  amongst 
his  soldiers,  as  has  been  said,  was  unbounded.  His 
magnificent,  manly  appearance  appealed  to  that  sense 
of  the  dramatic  in  which  a  soldier,  by  military  display, 
is  very  properly  trained.  His  familiarity  with  his  men, 
moreover,  introduced  a  very  personal  note  into  their 
devotion,  and  each  soldier  felt  that  his  general's  eye 
was  upon  him.  He  would  sometimes  go  amongst  them 
at  the  common  mess,  sit  down  with  them  at  their  tables, 
and  eat  or  drink  with  them.  He  joined  with  them  in 
their  exercises,  and  seems  to  have  been  able  to  run, 
wrestle,  or  box  with  the  best.  He  jested  with  high 
and  low,  and  liked  them  to  answer  him  back.  "  His 
raillery,"  says  Plutarch,  "was  sharp  and  insulting,  but 
the  edge  of  it  was  taken  off  by  his  readiness  to  submit 
to  any  kind  of  repartee ;  for  he  was  as  well  contented 
to  be  rallied  as  he  was  pleased  to  rally  others."  In  a 
word,  he  was  "the  delight  and  pleasure  of  the  army." 

His  eloquence  was  very  marked,  a  faculty  which  he 
seems  to  have  inherited  from  his  grandfather,  who  was 
a  famous  pleader  and  advocate.  As  a  young  man  he 
studied  the  art  at  Athens,  and  took  to  a  style  known 
as  the  Asiatic,  which  was  somewhat  flowery  and  osten- 
tatious. When  Pompey's  power  at  Rome  was  at  its 
height,  and  Caesar  was  in  eclipse,  Antony  read  his  chiefs 
letters  in  the  Senate  with  such  effect  that  he  obtained 


220     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


many  adherents  to  their  cause.  His  public  speech  at 
the  funeral  of  Caesar  led  to  the  downfall  of  the  assassins. 
When  he  himself  was  driven  out  of  Rome  he  made  such 
an  impression  by  his  words  upon  the  army  of  Lepidus, 
to  which  he  had  fled,  that  an  order  was  given  to  sound 
the  trumpets  in  order  to  drown  his  appealing  voice. 
"  There  was  no  man  of  his  time  like  him  for  addressing 
a  multitude,"  says  Plutarch,  "  or  for  carrying  soldiers 
with  him  by  the  force  of  words."  It  was  in  eloquence, 
perhaps,  that  he  made  his  nearest  approach  to  a  diver- 
sion from  the  ordinary ;  though  even  in  this  it  is  possible 
to  find  no  more  than  an  exalted  mediocrity.  A  fine 
presence,  a  frank  utterance,  and  a  vigorous  delivery  make 
a  great  impression  upon  a  crowd ;  and  common  sincerity 
is  the  most  electrifying  agent  in  man's  employment. 

Yet  another  of  the  causes  of  his  popularity  both 
amongst  his  troops  and  with  his  friends  was  the  sym- 
pathy which  he  always  showed  with  the  intrigues  and 
troubles  of  lovers.  "  In  love  affairs,"  says  Plutarch, 
"  he  was  very  agreeable ;  he  gained  friends  by  the  assist- 
ance he  gave  them  in  theirs,  and  took  other  people's 
raillery  upon  his  own  with  good-humour."  He  used  to 
lose  his  heart  to  women  with  the  utmost  ease  and  the 
greatest  frequency ;  and  they,  by  reason  of  his  splendid 
physique  and  noble  bearing,  not  infrequently  followed 
suit.  Amongst  serious  -  minded  people  he  had  an  ill 
name  for  familiarity  with  other  men's  wives ;  but  the 
domestic  habits  of  the  age  were  very  irregular,  and  his 
own  wife  Antonia  had  carried  on  an  intrigue  with  his 
friend  Dolabella  for  which  Antony  had  divorced  her, 
thereafter  marrying  the  strong-minded  Fulvia.  Antony 
was  a  full-blooded,  virile  man,  unrestrained  by  any  strong 
principles  of  morality  and  possessed  of  no  standard  of 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  221 


domestic  constancy  either  by  education  or  by  inclination. 
He  was  not  ashamed  of  the  consequences  of  his  pro- 
miscuous amours,  but  allowed  nature  to  have  her  will 
with  him.  Like  his  ancestor  Hercules,  he  was  so  proud 
of  his  stock  that  he  wished  it  multiplied  in  many  lands, 
and  he  never  confined  his  hopes  of  progeny  to  any  one 
woman. 

There  was  a  certain  brutality  in  his  nature,  and  of 
this  the  particular  instance  is  the  murder  of  Cicero. 
The  orator  had  incurred  his  bitter  hostility  in  the  first 
place  by  putting  to  death,  and  perhaps  denying  burial 
to  Antony's  stepfather,  Cornelius  Lentulus.  Later  he 
was  the  cause  of  Antony's  ejection  from  Rome  and  of 
his  privations  while  making  the  passage  of  the  Alps. 
The  traitorous  Dolabella  was  Cicero's  son-in-law,  which 
must  have  added  something  to  the  family  feud.  More- 
over, Cicero's  orations  and  writings  against  Antony  were 
continuous  and  full  of  invective.  It  is  perhaps  not  to  be 
wondered  at,  therefore,  that  when  Octavian,  Antony, 
and  Lepidus  decided  to  rid  the  State  of  certain  unde- 
sirable persons,  as  we  have  already  seen,  Cicero  was 
proscribed  and  put  to  death.  Plutarch  tells  us  that 
his  head  and  right  hand  were  hung  up  above  the 
speaker's  place  in  the  Forum,  and  that  Antony  laughed 
when  he  saw  them,  perhaps  because,  in  his  simple  way, 
he  did  not  know  what  else  to  do  to  carry  off  a  situation 
of  which  he  was  somewhat  ashamed. 

As  a  rule,  however,  Antony  was  kind  -  hearted  and 
humane,  and,  as  has  already  been  shown,  was  seldom 
severe  or  cruel  to  his  enemies.  To  many  people  he 
embodied  and  personified  good  -  nature,  jollity,  and 
strength :  he  seemed  to  them  to  be  a  blending  of 
Bacchus  with  Hercules ;   and  if  his  morals  were  not 


222     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


of  a  lofty  character,  it  may  be  said  in  his  defence  that 
they  were  consistent  with  the  part  for  which  nature 
had  cast  him. 

Little  is  known  as  to  his  attitude  towards  religion, 
and  one  cannot  tell  whether  he  entertained  any  of  the 
atheistic  doctrines  which  were  then  so  widely  preached, 
nor  does  the  fact  that  he  allowed  himself  to  be  wor- 
shipped as  Bacchus  help  us  to  form  an  opinion  in  this 
regard.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  his  faith  was  of 
a  simple  kind  in  conformity  with  his  character;  and  it 
is  known  that  he  was  superstitious  and  aware  of  the 
presence  of  the  supernatural.  A  certain  Egyptian 
diviner  made  a  profound  impression  upon  him  by  fore- 
shadowing the  future  events  of  his  life  and  warning  him 
against  the  power  of  Octavian.  And  again,  when  he 
set  out  upon  his  Parthian  campaign,  he  carried  with 
him  a  vessel  containing  the  water  of  the  Clepsydra, 
an  oracle  having  urged  him  to  do  so,  while,  at  the 
same  time,  he  took  with  him  a  wreath  made  of  the 
leaves  of  the  sacred  olive-tree.  He  believed  implicitly 
in  the  divine  nature  of  dreams,  and  we  are  told  of  one 
occasion  upon  which  he  dreamed  that  his  right  hand 
was  thunderstruck,  and  thereupon  discovered  a  plot 
against  his  life.  Such  superstitions,  however,  were  very 
general,  even  amongst  educated  people ;  and  Antony's 
belief  in  omens  has  only  to  be  noted  here  because  it 
played  some  part  in  his  career.  Until  the  last  year  of 
his  life  he  was  attended  with  good  luck,  and  a  friendly 
fortune  helped  him  out  of  many  difficult  situations  into 
which  his  impetuosity  had  led  him.  It  seemed  to  many 
that  Bacchus  had  really  identified  himself  with  Antony, 
bringing  to  his  aid  the  powers  of  his  godhead ;  and 
when  at  the  end  his  downfall  was  complete,  several 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  223 


persons  declared  that  they  actually  heard  the  clatter 
and  the  processional  music  which  marked  the  departure 
of  the  deity  from  the  destinies  of  the  fallen  giant.  The 
historian  cannot  but  find  extenuating  circumstances  in 
the  majority  of  the  culpable  acts  of  the  "colossal  child  "; 
and  amongst  these  excuses  there  is  none  so  urgent  as 
this  continuous  presence  of  a  smiling  fortune.  "Antony 
in  misfortune,"  says  Plutarch,  "was  most  nearly  a  vir- 
tuous man";  and  if  we  wish  to  form  a  true  estimate 
of  his  character  we  must  give  prominence  to  his  hardy 
and  noble  attitude  in  the  days  of  his  flight  from  Rome 
or  of  his  retreat  from  Media.  It  was  then  that  he  had 
done  with  his  boyish  inconsequence  and  played  the  man. 
At  all  other  times  he  was  the  spoilt  child  of  fortune, 
rollicking  on  his  triumphant  way;  jesting,  drinking, 
loving,  and  fighting ;  careless  of  public  opinion ;  and, 
like  a  god,  sporting  at  will  with  the  ball  of  the  world. 

When  Dellius  came  to  bring  Cleopatra  to  him  he  was 
at  the  height  of  his  power.  Absolute  master  of  the  East, 
he  was  courted  by  kings  and  princes,  who  saw  in  him 
the  future  ruler  of  the  entire  Roman  Empire.  Caesar 
must  have  often  told  the  Queen  of  his  faults  and  abili- 
ties, and  she  herself  must  have  noticed  the  frank  simplicity 
of  his  character.  She  set  out,  therefore,  prepared  to  meet 
not  with  a  complex  genius,  but  with  an  ordinary  man, 
representative,  in  a  monstrous  manner,  of  the  victories 
and  the  blunders  of  common  human  nature,  and,  in- 
cidentally, a  man  somewhat  plagued  by  an  emancipated 
wife. 


224 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  ALLIANCE  BETWEEN  CLEOPATRA  AND  ANTONY. 

Determined  to  win  the  fickle  Antony  back  to  her  cause 
and  that  of  her  son,  Cleopatra  set  sail  from  Alexandria, 
and,  passing  between  Cyprus  and  the  coast  of  Syria, 
at  length  one  morning  entered  the  mouth  of  the  Cydnus 
in  Cilicia,  and  made  her  way  up  to  the  city  of  Tarsus 
which  was  situated  on  the  banks  of  the  river  in  the 
shadow  of  the  wooded  slopes  of  the  Taurus  mountains. 
The  city  was  famous  both  for  its  maritime  commerce  and 
for  its  school  of  oratory.  The  ships  of  Tarshish  (i.e., 
Tarsus)  had  been  renowned  since  ancient  days,  and 
upon  these  vessels  the  rhetoricians  travelled  far  and 
wide,  carrying  the  methods  of  their  alma  mater  through- 
out the  known  world.  Julius  Caesar  and  Cato  may  be 
named  as  two  of  the  pupils  of  this  school  who  have 
played  their  parts  in  the  foregoing  pages  ;  ^  and  now 
Antony,  the  foremost  Roman  of  this  period,  was  honour- 
ing Tarsus  itself  with  his  presence.  The  city  stood  some 
miles  back  from  the  sea,  and  it  was  late  afternoon  before 
its  buildings  and  busy  docks  were  observed  by  the 
Egyptians,  sheltering  against  the  slopes  of  the  moun- 
tains.   As  the  fleet  sailed  up  the  Cydnus,  the  people  of 

'  St  Paul  was  also  trained  in  this  school. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  225 


the  neighbourhood  swarmed  down  to  the  water's  edge 
to  watch  its  stately  progress ;  and  the  excitement  was 
intense  when  it  was  seen  that  the  Queen's  vessel  was 
fitted  and  decked  out  in  the  most  extravagant  manner. 
Near  the  city  the  river  widens  into  a  quiet  lake,  and 
here  in  the  roads,  where  lay  the  world-renowned  mer- 
chant vessels,  Cleopatra's  ships  probably  came  to  anchor, 
while  the  quays  and  embankments  were  crowded  with 
the  townsfolk  who  had  gathered  to  witness  the  Queen's 
arrival. 

On  hearing  of  her  approach  Antony  had  seated  him- 
self upon  the  public  tribunal  in  the  market-place,  expect- 
ing that  she  would  land  at  once  and  come  to  pay  her 
respects  to  him  in  official  manner.  But  Cleopatra  had 
no  intention  of  playing  a  part  which  might  in  any  way  be 
interpreted  as  that  of  a  vassal  or  suppliant ;  and  she 
therefore  seems  to  have  remained  on  board  her  ship  at 
a  distance  from  the  shore,  as  though  in  no  haste  to  meet 
Antony. 

Meanwhile  reports  began  to  spread  of  the  magnificence 
of  the  Queen's  vessels,  and  it  was  said  that  preparations 
were  being  made  on  board  for  the  reception  of  the  Tri- 
umvir. The  crowds  surrounding  the  tribunal  thereupon 
hurried  from  the  market-place  to  join  those  upon  the 
quays,  and  soon  Antony  was  left  alone  with  his  retinue. 
There  he  sat  waiting  for  some  time,  till,  losing  patience, 
he  sent  a  message  to  the  Queen  inviting  her  to  dine  with 
him.  To  this  she  replied  by  asking  him  to  bring  the 
Roman  and  local  magnates  to  dine  with  her  instead ; 
and  Antony,  not  wishing  to  stand  upon  ceremony  with 
his  old  friend,  at  once  accepted  the  invitation.  At  dusk, 
therefore,  Cleopatra  appears  to  have  ordered  her  vessel 
to  be  brought  across  the  lake  to  the  city,  and  to  be 

p 


226     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


moored  at  the  crowded  quay,  where  already  Antony  was 
waiting  to  come  on  board  ;  and  the  burly  Roman,  always 
a  lover  of  theatrical  display,  must  then  have  been  enter- 
tained by  a  spectacle  more  stirring  than  any  he  had 
known  before. 

Across  the  water,  in  which  the  last  light  of  the  sunset 
was  reflected,  the  royal  galley  was  rowed  by  banks  of 
silver-mounted  oars,  the  great  purple  sails  hanging  idly 
in  the  still  air  of  evening.  The  vessel  was  steered  by 
two  oar-like  rudders,  controlled  by  helmsmen  who  stood 
in  the  stern  of  the  ship  under  a  shelter  constructed  in  the 
form  of  an  enormous  elephant's  head  of  shining  gold,  the 
trunk  raised  aloft. ^  Around  the  helmsmen  a  number  of 
beautiful  slave-women  were  grouped  in  the  guise  of  sea- 
nymphs  and  graces ;  and  near  them  a  company  of 
musicians  played  a  melody  upon  their  flutes,  pipes,  and 
harps,  for  which  the  slow-moving  oars  seemed  to  beat 
the  time.  Cleopatra  herself,  decked  in  the  loose,  shim- 
mering robes  of  the  goddess  Venus,  lay  under  an  awning 
bespangled  with  gold,  while  boys  dressed  as  Cupids  stood 
on  either  side  of  her  couch,  fanning  her  with  the  coloured 
ostrich  plumes  of  the  Egyptian  court.  Before  the  royal 
canopy  brazen  censers  stood  upon  delicate  pedestals, 
sending  forth  fragrant  clouds  of  exquisitely  prepared 
Egyptian  incense,  the  marvellous  odour  of  which  was 
wafted  to  the  shore  ere  yet  the  vessel  had  come  to  its 
moorings." 

At  last,  as  the  light  of  day  began  to  fade,  the  royal 
galley  was  moored  to  the  crowded  quay,  and  Antony 

*  The  elephant's  head  I  describe  from  that  seen  upon  the  Queen's  vessel 
shown  upon  the  coins. 

2  The  recipe  for  the  preparation  of  incense  of  about  this  period  is  inscribed 
upon  a  wall  of  the  temple  of  Philje,  and  shows  a  vast  number  of  ingredients. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  227 


stepped  on  board,  followed  by  the  chief  officers  of  his 
staff  and  by  the  local  celebrities  of  Tarsus.  His  meeting 
with  the  Queen  appears  to  have  been  of  the  most  cordial 
nature,  for  the  manner  of  her  approach  must  have  made 
it  impossible  for  him  at  that  moment  to  censure  her  con- 
duct. Moreover,  the  splendid  allurements  of  the  scene 
in  which  they  met,  the  enchantment  of  the  twilight,  the 
enticement  of  her  beauty,  the  delicacy  of  the  music 
blending  with  the  ripple  of  the  water,  the  intoxication 
of  the  incense  and  the  priceless  perfumes,  must  have 
stirred  his  imagination  and  driven  from  his  mind  all 
thought  of  reproach.  Nor  could  he  have  found  much 
opportunity  for  serious  conversation  with  her,  for  pres- 
ently the  company  was  led  down  to  the  banqueting- 
saloon  where  a  dinner  of  the  utmost  magnificence  was 
served.  Twelve  triple  couches,  covered  with  embroideries 
and  furnished  with  cushions,  were  set  around  the  room, 
before  each  of  which  stood  a  table  whereon  rested  golden 
dishes  inlaid  with  precious  stones,  and  drinking  goblets 
of  exquisite  workmanship.  The  walls  of  the  saloon  were 
hung  with  embroideries  worked  in  purple  and  gold,  and 
the  floor  was  strewn  with  flowers.  Antony  could  not 
refrain  from  exclaiming  at  the  splendour  of  the  enter- 
tainment, whereupon  Cleopatra  declared  that  it  was  not 
worthy  of  comment ;  and,  there  and  then,  she  made  him 
a  present  of  everything  used  at  the  banquet  —  dishes, 
drinking-vessels,  couches,  embroideries,  and  all  else  ir>. 
the  saloon.  Returning  once  more  to  the  deck,  the  elated 
guests,  now  made  more  impressionable  by  the  effects  of 
Egyptian  wine,  were  amazed  to  find  themselves  standing 
beneath  a  marvellous  kaleidoscope  of  lanterns,  hung  in 
squares  and  circles  from  a  forest  of  branches  interlaced 
above  their  heads,  and  in  these  almost  magical  surround- 


228     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


ings  they  enjoyed  the  enlivening  company  of  the  fascinat- 
ing young  Queen  until  the  wine-jars  were  emptied  and 
the  lamps  had  burnt  low. 

From  the  shore  the  figures  of  the  revellers,  moving 
to  and  fro  amidst  this  galaxy  of  lights  to  the  happy 
strains  of  the  music,  must  have  appeared  to  be  actors 
in  some  divine  masque ;  and  it  was  freely  stated,  as 
though  it  had  been  fact,  that  Venus  had  come  down  to 
earth  to  feast  with  Dionysos  (Antony)  for  the  common 
good  of  Asia.  Cleopatra,  as  we  have  already  seen,  had 
been  identified  with  Venus  during  the  time  when  she 
lived  in  Rome ;  and  in  Egypt  she  was  always  deified. 
And  thus  the  character  in  which  she  presented  herself 
at  Tarsus  was  not  assumed,  as  is  generally  supposed, 
simply  for  the  purpose  of  creating  a  charming  picture, 
but  it  was  her  wish  actually  to  be  received  as  a  goddess, 
that  Antony  might  behold  in  her  the  divine  Queen  of 
Egypt  whom  the  great  Caesar  himself  had  accepted  and  i 
honoured  as  an  incarnation  of  Venus.  It  must  be  re- 
membered that  at  this  period  men  were  very  prone  to 
identify  prominent  persons  with  popular  divinities.  Julia, 
the  daughter  of  Octavian,  was  in  like  manner  identified 
with  Venus  Genetrix  by  the  inhabitants  of  certain  cities. 
We  have  seen  how  Caesar  seems  to  have  been  named 
Lupercus,  and  how  Antony  was  called  Dionysos 
(Bacchus) ;  and  it  will  be  remembered  how,  at  Lystra, 
Paul  and  Barnabas  were  saluted  as  Hermes  and  Zeus. 
In  the  many  known  cases,  such  as  these,  the  people 
actually  credited  the  identification ;  and  though  a  little 
thought  probably  checked  a  continuance  of  such  a  belief, 
at  the  time  there  seemed  to  be  no  cause  for  doubt  that 
these  divinities  had  made  themselves  manifest  on  earth. 
The  crowds  who  stood  on  the  banks  of  the  Cydnus  that 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  229 


night  must  therefore  have  really  believed  themselves  to 
be  peeping  at  an  entertainment  provided  by  a  manifes- 
tation of  a  popular  goddess  for  the  amusement  of  an 
incarnation  of  a  favourite  god. 

It  would  appear  that  Antony  invited  Cleopatra  to  sup 
with  him  on  the  following  evening,  but  the  Queen  seems 
to  have  urged  him  and  his  suite  again  to  feast  with  her. 
This  second  banquet  was  so  far  more  splendid  than  the 
first  that,  according  to  Plutarch,  the  entertainment  al- 
ready described  seemed  by  comparison  to  be  contemp- 
tible. When  the  guests  departed,  not  only  did  she  give 
to  each  one  the  couch  upon  which  he  had  lain,  and  the 
goblets  which  had  been  set  before  him,  but  she  also 
presented  the  chief  guests  with  litters,  and  with  slaves 
to  carry  them,  and  Ethiopian  boys  to  bear  torches  in 
front  of  them ;  while  for  the  lesser  guests  she  provided 
horses  adorned  with  golden  trappings,  which  they  were 
bidden  to  keep  as  mementos  of  the  banquet. 

On  the  next  night  Cleopatra  at  last  deigned  to  dine 
with  Antony,  who  had  exhausted  the  resources  of  Tarsus 
in  his  desire  to  provide  a  feast  which  should  equal  in 
magnificence  those  given  by  the  Queen ;  but  in  this  he 
failed,  and  he  was  the  first  to  make  a  jest  of  his  unsuc- 
cess  and  of  the  poverty  of  his  wits.  The  Queen's  enter- 
tainments had  been  marked  by  that  brilliancy  of  con- 
versation and  atmosphere  of  refinement  which  in  past 
years  had  so  appealed  to  the  intelligence  of  the  great 
Dictator ;  but  Antony's  banquet,  on  the  contrary,  was 
notable  for  the  coarseness  of  the  wit  and  for  what 
Plutarch  describes  as  a  sort  of  rustic  awkwardness. 
Cleopatra,  however,  was  equal  to  the  occasion,  and 
speedily  adjusted  her  conduct  to  suit  that  of  her  burly 
host.     "  Perceiving  that   his   raillery  was  broad  and 


230     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


gross,  and  that  it  savoured  more  of  the  soldier  than  of 
the  courtier,  she  rejoined  in  the  same  taste,  and  fell  at 
once  into  that  manner,  without  any  sort  of  reluctance 
or  reserve."  ^  Thus  she  soon  succeeded  in  captivating 
this  powerful  Roman,  and  in  making  him  her  most  de- 
voted friend  and  ally.  There  was  something  irresistible 
in  the  excitement  of  her  presence :  for  the  daintiness  of 
her  person,  the  vivacity  of  her  character,  and  the  en- 
chantment of  her  voice,  were,  so  to  speak,  enhanced 
by  the  audacity  of  her  treatment  of  the  broad  subjects 
introduced  in  conversation.  Antony  had  sent  for  her 
to  censure  her  for  a  supposed  negligence  of  his  inter- 
ests ;  but  speedily  he  was  led  to  realise  that  he  himself, 
and  not  the  Queen,  had  deviated  from  the  course  upon 
which  they  had  agreed  in  Rome.  It  was  he  who,  by 
his  association  with  Octavian,  had  appeared  to  desert 
what  Cleopatra  believed  to  be  the  genuine  Caesarian 
cause ;  whereas,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Queen  was 
able  to  show  that  she  had  refrained  from  sending  aid 
to  the  Triumvirate  simply  because  she  could  not  decide 
in  what  manner  the  welfare  of  her  son,  the  little  Caesar, 
was  to  be  promoted  by  such  an  action.  Under  the  spell 
of  her  attraction  Antony,  who  in  the  Dictator's  lifetime 
had  never  been  permitted  to  receive  in  his  heart  the 
full  force  of  her  charming  attack,  now  fell  an  easy 
victim  to  her  strategy,  and  declared  himself  ready  to 
carry  out  her  wishes  in  all  things. 

On  the  fourth  night  of  her  visit  to  Tarsus,  Cleopatra 
entertained  the  Roman  officers  at  another  banquet ;  and 
on  this  occasion  she  caused  the  floor  of  the  saloon  to 
be  strewn  with  roses  to  the  depth  of  nearly  two  feet, 
the  flowers  being  held  in  a  solid  formation  by  nets  which 

^  Plutarch :  Antony. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  231 


were  tightly  spread  over  them  and  fastened  to  the  sur- 
rounding walls,  the  guests  thus  walking  to  their  couches 
upon  a  perfumed  mattress  of  blooms,  the  cost  of  which, 
for  the  one  room,  was  some  ^^250. 

In  this  prodigious  manner  the  next  few  days  were 
spent.  The  Queen  made  every  possible  effort  to  dis- 
play to  Antony  her  wealth  and  power,  in  order  that 
she  might  obtain  his  consent  to  some  form  of  alliance 
between  them  which  should  be  directed  against  Octavian. 
Her  one  desire  now  was  to  effect  a  break  between  these 
two  leaders,  to  set  them  at  one  another's  throats,  and 
then,  by  lending  Antony  her  support,  to  secure  the 
overthrow  of  Octavian,  Csesar's  nephew,  and  the 
triumph  of  Caesarion,  Csesar's  son.  For  this  purpose 
it  was  absolutely  necessary  to  reveal  the  extent  of  her 
wealth,  and  to  exhibit  the  limitless  stream  of  her  re- 
sources. She  therefore  seems  to  have  shown  a  mild 
disdain  for  the  Roman  general's  eiforts  to  entertain 
her,  and  at  his  banquets  she  seems  to  have  conveyed 
to  him  the  disquieting  impression  that  she  was  smiling 
at  his  attempted  magnificence,  and  was  even  puzzled  by 
his  inability  to  give  to  his  feasts  that  fairy  aspect  which 
characterised  her  own. 

Her  attitude  caused  Antony  some  uneasiness,  and  at 
length  it  seems  that  he  asked  the  Queen  directly  what 
more  could  be  done  to  add  to  the  splendour  of  his  table. 
During  the  course  of  the  conversation  which  ensued  he 
appears  to  have  told  her  how  much  an  entertainment 
of  the  kind  cost  him ;  whereupon  she  replied  that  she 
herself  could  with  ease  expend  the  equivalent  of  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  pounds  sterling  upon  a  single 
meal,  Antony  promptly  denied  it,  declaring  that  such 
a  thing  was  impossible ;  and  the  Queen  thereupon  offered 


232     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


him  a  wager  that  she  would  do  so  on  the  next  day.  This 
was  accepted,  and  a  certain  Plancus  was  invited  to  decide 
it.  Antony  does  not  appear  to  have  recollected  that  in 
time  past  Clodius,  the  son  of  the  comedian  ^sop,  was 
wont  to  mingle  melted  pearls  with  his  food,  that  the 
cost  of  his  meals  might  be  interestingly  enormous ;  ^  for 
he  would  then  have  realised  that  Cleopatra  intended  to 
employ  some  such  device  to  win  her  wager,  and  he 
would  perhaps  have  restrained  her. 

To  the  next  day's  banquet  the  Roman  looked  forward 
with  some  excitement ;  and  he  must  have  been  at  once 
elated  and  disappointed  when  he  found  the  display  to 
be  not  much  above  the  ordinary.  At  the  end  of  the 
meal  he  calculated  with  Plancus  the  expenses  of  the 
various  dishes,  and  estimated  the  value  of  the  golden 
plates  and  goblets.  He  then  turned  to  the  Queen, 
telling  her  that  the  total  amount  did  not  nearly  reach 
the  figure  named  in  the  wager. 

"Wait,"  said  Cleopatra.  "This  is  only  a  beginning. 
I  shall  now  try  whether  I  cannot  spend  the  stipulated 
sum  upon  myself." 

A  signal  was  given  to  the  attendant  slaves,  who 
brought  a  table  to  her,  upon  which  a  single  cup  con- 
taining a  little  vinegar  was  set.  She  was  wearing  in 
her  ears  at  the  time  two  enormous  pearls,  the  value  of 
each  of  which  was  more  than  half  the  amount  named 
in  the  wager ;  and  one  of  these  she  rapidly  detached, 
throwing  it  into  the  vinegar,  wherein  it  soon  disinteg- 
rated. The  vinegar  and  some  seventy- five  thousand 
pounds  having  then  trickled  down  her  royal  throat,  she 
prepared  to  destroy  the  second  pearl  in  like  manner ; 
but  Plancus  intervened,  and  declared  the  wager  won, 

1  Hor.  I.  ii.  Sat.  3. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  233 


while  Antony,  no  doubt,  pondered  not  without  gloom 
upon  the  ways  of  women. 

It  has  generally  been  thought  that  the  Queen's  ex- 
travagance was  to  be  attributed  to  her  vain  desire  to 
impress  Antony  with  the  fact  of  her  personal  wealth. 
But,  as  we  have  seen,  there  was  certainly  a  strong 
political  reason  for  her  actions ;  and  there  is  no  need 
to  suppose  that  she  was  actuated  by  vanity.  Indeed, 
the  display  of  her  wealth  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
on  any  occasion  as  ostentatious  as  one  might  gather 
from  the  Greek  authors,  whose  writings  suggest  that 
they  attributed  to  her  a  boastful  profligacy  in  financial 
matters  which  could  only  be  described  as  bad  form.  It 
would  seem  rather  that  the  instances  of  her  prodigality 
recorded  here  were  all  characterised  in  appearance  by 
a  subtle  show  of  unaffected  simplicity  and  ingenuous- 
ness, a  sort  of  breath-taking  audacity,  while  in  quality 
they  were  largely  political  and  speculative. 

It  is  very  important  for  the  reader  to  understand  the 
attitude  of  Cleopatra  at  this  time,  and  to  divest  his  mind 
of  the  views  usually  accepted  in  regard  to  the  Queen's 
alliance  with  Antony ;  and  therefore  I  must  repeat  that 
it  was  Cleopatra's  desire  at  Tarsus  to  arouse  the  interest 
of  Antony  in  the  possibilities  of  Egypt  as  the  basis  of 
an  attempt  upon  Rome.  She  wished  to  lead  him,  as 
I  have  said,  to  put  faith  in  the  limitless  wealth  that 
might  flow  down  the  Nile  to  fill  the  coffers  which 
should  be  Jiis,  were  he  to  lead  an  army  to  claim  the 
throne  for  herself  as  Csesar's  wife,  and  for  her  son 
as  Caesar's  flesh  and  blood.  Here  was  the  man  who 
could  conquer  for  her  the  empire  which  she  had  lost 
by  the  premature  death  of  the  great  Dictator.  It  was 
necessary  to  make  him  understand  the  advantages  of 


234     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


partnership  with  her,  and  hence  it  became  needful  for 
her  to  display  to  him  the  untold  wealth  that  she  could 
command.  There  was  no  particular  vanity  in  her 
actions,  nor  real  wastefulness :  she  was  playing  a  great 
game,  and  the  stakes  were  high.  A  few  golden  goblets, 
a  melted  pearl  or  two,  were  not  an  excessive  price  to 
pay  for  the  partisanship  of  Antony.  Her  son  Caesarion 
was  too  young  to  fight  his  own  battles,  and  she  herself 
could  not  lead  an  army,  Antony's  championship  there- 
fore had  to  be  obtained,  and  there  was  no  way  of  enlist- 
ing his  sympathies  so  sure  as  that  of  revealing  to  him 
the  boundless  riches  which  she  could  bring  to  his  aid. 
Let  him  have  practical  demonstration  of  the  wealth  of 
hidden  Africa  and  mysterious  Asia  at  her  command,  and 
he  would  surely  not  shun  an  enterprise  which  should  make 
Caesar's  friend,  Caesar's  wife,  and  Caesar's  son  the  three 
sovereigns  of  the  world.  She  would  show  him  the  gold 
of  Ethiopia  and  of  Nubia  ;  she  would  turn  his  attention 
to  the  great  trade-routes  to  India ;  and  she  would  remind 
him  of  the  advantageous  possibilities  which  the  great 
Dictator  had  seen  in  an  alliance  with  her.  In  this 
manner  she  would  again  win  his  support,  as  she  believed 
she  had  already  done  in  Rome ;  and  thus  through  him 
the  ambitious  schemes  of  Julius  Caesar  might  at  last 
be  put  into  execution. 

There  were,  however,  one  or  two  outstanding  matters 
which  required  immediate  attention.  The  Princess 
Arsinoe,  who  had  walked  the  streets  of  Rome  in  Caesar's 
Triumph  and  had  been  released  after  that  event,  was 
now  residing  either  at  Miletus  or  Ephesus,^  where  she 
had  received  sanctuary  amongst  the  priests  and  priestesses 
attached  to  the  temple  of  Artemis.     The  High  Priest 

^  Josephus  says  Ephesus,  Appian  Miletus. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  235 


treated  her  kindly,  and  even  honoured  her  as  a  queen, 
a  fact  which  suggests  that  he  had  definitely  placed 
himself  upon  her  side  in  her  feud  with  Cleopatra.  She 
seems  to  have  been  a  daring  and  ambitious  woman,  who, 
throughout  her  short  life,  struggled  vainly  to  obtain  the 
throne  of  Egypt  for  herself ;  and  now  it  would  appear 
that  she  was  once  more  scheming  to  oust  her  sister, 
just  as  she  had  schemed  in  the  Alexandrian  Palace  in 
the  days  when  Ganymedes  was  her  chamberlain. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Dictator  had  given 
the  throne  of  Cyprus  to  Arsinoe  and  her  brother,  but  it 
does  not  seem  that  this  gift  had  ever  been  ratified, 
though  no  doubt  the  Princess  attempted  to  style  herself 
Queen  of  that  island.  It  may  be  that  she  had  come  to 
some  terms  with  Cassius  and  Brutus  by  offering  them 
aid  in  their  war  with  Antony  if  they  would  assist  her 
in  her  endeavours  to  obtain  the  Egyptian  throne ;  and 
it  is  possible  that  the  Egyptian  Viceroy  of  Cyprus, 
Serapion,  was  involved  in  this  arrangement  when  he 
handed  over  his  fleet  to  Cassius,  as  has  been  recorded 
in  the  last  chapter.  At  all  events,  Cleopatra  was  now 
able  to  obtain  Antony's  consent  to  the  execution  both 
of  Arsinoe  and  of  Serapion.  A  number  of  men  were 
despatched,  therefore,  with  orders  to  put  her  to  death, 
and  these  entering  the  temple  while  Arsinoe  was  serving 
in  the  sanctuary,  killed  her  at  the  steps  of  the  altar. 
The  High  Priest  was  indicted  apparently  on  the  charge 
of  conspiracy,  and  it  was  only  with  great  difficulty 
that  the  priesthood  managed  to  obtain  his  pardon. 
Serapion,  however,  could  not  claim  indulgence  on 
account  of  his  calling,  and  he  was  speedily  arrested 
and  slain. 

Having  thus  rid  herself  of  one  serious  menace  to  her 


236     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


throne,  Cleopatra  persuaded  Antony  to  assist  her  to 
remove  from  her  mind  another  cause  for  deep  anxiety. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  when  Caesar  defeated  the 
Egyptian  army  in  the  south  of  the  Delta  in  March 
B.C.  47,  the  young  King  Ptolemy  XIV.  was  drowned 
in  the  rout,  his  body  being  said  to  have  been  recognised 
by  his  golden  corselet.  Now,  however,  a  man  who 
claimed  to  be  none  other  than  this  unfortunate  monarch 
was  trying  to  obtain  a  following,  and  possibly  had  put 
himself  in  correspondence  with  his  supposed  sister 
Arsinoe.  The  pretender  was  residing  at  this  time  in 
Phoenicia,  a  fact  which  suggests  that  he  had  also  been 
in  communication  with  Serapion,  who  at  the  time  of  his 
arrest  was  likewise  travelling  in  that  country.  Antony 
therefore  consented  to  the  arrest  and  execution  of  this 
pseudo-monarch,  and  in  a  few  weeks'  time  he  was  quietly 
despatched. 

Historians  are  inclined  to  see  in  the  deaths  of  these 
three  conspirators  an  instance  of  Cleopatra's  cruelty  and 
vindictiveness  ;  and  one  finds  them  described  as  victims  of 
her  insatiable  ambition,  the  killing  of  Arsinoe  being  named 
as  the  darkest  stain  upon  the  Queen's  black  reputation. 
I  cannot  see,  however,  in  what  manner  a  menace  to  her 
throne  of  this  kind  could  have  been  removed,  save  by 
the  ejection  of  the  makers  of  the  trouble  from  the  earthly 
sphere  of  their  activities.  The  death  of  Arsinoe,  like 
that  of  Thomas  a  Beckett,  is  rendered  ugly  by  the  fact 
that  it  took  place  at  the  steps  of  a  sacred  altar;  but, 
remembering  the  period  in  which  these  events  occurred, 
the  executions  are  not  to  be  censured  too  severely,  for 
what  goodly  king  or  queen  of  former  days  has  not  thus 
removed  by  death  all  pretenders  to  the  throne  ? 

Cleopatra's  visit  to  Tarsus  does  not  seem  to  have  been 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  237 


prolonged  beyond  a  few  weeks,  but  when  at  length  she 
returned  to  Alexandria,  she  must  have  felt  that  her  short 
residence  with  Antony  had  raised  her  prestige  once  more 
to  the  loftiest  heights.  Not  only  had  she  used  his  dicta- 
torial power  to  sweep  her  two  rivals  and  their  presumed 
accomplice  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  not  only  had  she 
struck  the  terror  of  her  power  into  the  heart  of  the 
powerful  High  Priest  of  Artemis  who,  in  the  distant 
^gean,  had  merely  harboured  a  pretender  to  Egypt's 
throne,  but  she  had  actually  won  the  full  support  of 
Antony  once  more,  and  had  extracted  from  him  a 
promise  to  pay  her  a  visit  at  Alexandria  in  order  that 
he  might  see  with  his  own  eyes  the  wealth  which  Egypt 
could  offer.  For  the  first  time,  therefore,  since  the 
death  of  Caesar,  her  prospects  seemed  once  more  to  be 
brilliant ;  and  it  must  have  been  with  a  light  heart  that 
she  sailed  across  the  Mediterranean  once  more  towards 
her  own  splendid  city. 


238 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CLEOPATRA  AND  ANTONY  IN  ALEXANDRIA. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Antony  was  extremely 
anxious  to  form  a  solid  alliance  with  Cleopatra  at  this 
juncture,  for  he  needed  just  such  an  ally  for  the  schemes 
which  he  had  in  view.  His  relations  with  Octavian 
were  strained,  and  the  insignificant  part  played  by  the 
latter  in  the  operations  which  culminated  at  Philippi 
had  led  him  to  feel  some  contempt  for  the  young  man's 
abilities.  The  Triumvirate  was,  at  best,  a  compromise ; 
and  Antony  had  no  expectation  that  it  would  for  one 
day  outlive  the  acquisition  either  by  Octavian  or  himself 
of  preponderant  power.  At  the  back  of  his  mind  he 
hoped  for  the  fall  of  Caesar's  nephew ;  and  he  saw  in  the 
alliance  with  Cleopatra  the  means  whereby  he  could 
obtain  a  numerical  advantage  over  his  rival. 

After  the  battle  of  Philippi  Octavian  had  returned  to 
Rome,  and  Antony  now  received  news  that  the  troops 
under  their  joint  command  were  highly  dissatisfied  with 
the  rewards  which  they  had  received  for  their  labours. 
There  was  considerable  friction  between  those  who  were 
loyal  to  Octavian  and  those  who  thought  that  Antony 
would  treat  them  more  generously ;  and  the  latter's 
agents  in  Rome,  notably  his  wife  Fulvia,  were  endeavour- 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  239 


ing  to  widen  the  breach,  more  probably  of  their  own 
accord  than  with  their  leader's  direct  consent.  Antony 
had  no  wish  to  break  with  Octavian  until  he  could  feel 
confident  of  success  ;  and,  moreover,  his  attention  was 
directed  at  this  time  more  keenly  to  the  question  of  the 
conquest  of  Parthia  than  to  that  of  the  destruction  of 
Octavian.  The  great  Dictator  had  stirred  his  imagina- 
tion in  regard  to  the  Parthians,  and  possibly  the  project 
of  the  invasion  of  India  was  already  exercising  his  mind, 
as  it  certainly  did  in  later  years. ^  His  plans  therefore, 
in  broad  outline,  now  seem  to  have  been  grouped  into 
three  movements :  firstly,  the  formation  of  an  offensive 
and  defensive  alliance  with  Cleopatra,  in  order  that  her 
money,  men,  and  ships  might  be  placed  at  his  disposal ; 
secondly,  the  invasion  of  Parthia,  so  that  the  glory  of 
his  victories  and  the  loot  of  the  conquered  country  might 
raise  his  prestige  to  the  highest  point ;  and  thirdly,  the 
picking  of  a  quarrel  with  Octavian,  in  order  that  he 
might  sweep  him  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  thereby 
leaving  himself  ruler  of  the  world.  Then,  like  Caesar, 
he  would  probably  proclaim  himself  King,  would  marry 
Cleopatra,  and  would  establish  a  royal  dynasty,  his 
successor  being  either  his  stepson,  the  Dictator's  child, 
or  the  future  son  of  his  marriage  with  the  Queen  of 
Egypt  should  their  union  be  fruitful. 

Filled  with  these  hopes,  which  corresponded  so  close- 
ly to  those  of  Cleopatra,  Antony  prepared  to  go  to 
Alexandria  in  the  autumn  of  the  year  B.C.  41,  intent  on 
sealing  the  alliance  with  the  Queen  of  Egypt.  He 
arranged  for  a  certain  Decidius  Saxa,  one  of  the  late 
Dictator's  chosen  generals,  to  be  placed  in  command  of 
the  forces  in  Syria ;  and  it  was  this  officer's  duty  to  keep 

1  Page  275. 


240     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


him  informed  of  the  movements  of  the  Parthians,  and  to 
prepare  for  the  coming  campaign  against  them.  The 
King  of  Parthia,  Orodes  by  name,  had  engaged  the 
services  of  a  Roman  renegade  named  Quintus  Labienus, 
a  former  colleague  of  Cassius  and  Brutus ;  and  this  man 
was  now  working  in  conjunction  with  Pacorus,  the  King's 
son,  in  organising  the  Parthian  armies  and  preparing 
them  for  an  offensive  movement  against  the  neighbouring 
Roman  provinces.  There  seemed  thus  to  be  no  doubt 
that  war  would  speedily  break  out,  and  Antony  was 
therefore  very  anxious  to  put  himself  in  possession  of  the 
Egyptian  military  and  naval  resources  as  quickly  as 
possible. 

He  was  about  to  set  sail  for  Alexandria  when  news 
seems  to  have  reached  him  that  the  troubles  in  Rome 
were  coming  to  a  head,  and  that  his  brother  Lucius 
Antonius,  and  his  wife  Fulvia,  were  preparing  to  attack 
Octavian.  He  must  therefore  have  hesitated  in  deciding 
whether  he  should  return  to  Rome  or  not.  He  must 
have  been  considerably  annoj'ed  at  the  turn  which  events 
had  taken,  for  he  knew  well  enough  that  he  was  not  then 
in  a  position  to  wage  a  successful  war  against  Octavian  ; 
and  he  was  much  afraid  of  being  involved  in  a  contest 
which  would  probably  lead  to  his  own  downfall.  If  he 
returned  to  Italy  it  was  possible  that  he  might  be  able  to 
patch  up  the  quarrel,  and  to  effect  a  reconciliation  which 
should  keep  the  world  at  peace  until  the  time  when  he 
himself  desired  war.  But  if  he  failed  in  his  pacific 
efforts,  a  conflict  would  ensue  for  which  he  was  not 
prepared.  It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  that  he  thought  it 
more  desirable  that  he  should  keep  clear  of  the  quarrel, 
and  should  show  himself  to  be  absorbed  in  eastern 
questions.    By  going  over  to  Egypt  for  a  few  weeks,  not 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  241 


only  would  he  detach  himself  from  the  embarrassing 
tactics  of  his  party  in  Rome,  but  he  would  also  raise 
forces  and  money,  nominally  for  his  Parthian  campaign, 
which  would  be  of  immense  service  to  him  should 
Octavian  press  the  quarrel  to  a  conclusive  issue.  More- 
over, there  can  be  little  question  that  to  Antony  the 
thought  of  meeting  his  stern  wife  again  and  of  being 
obliged  to  live  once  more  under  her  powerful  scrutiny 
was  very  distasteful ;  whereas,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
looked  forward  with  youthful  enthusiasm  to  a  repetition 
of  the  charming  entertainment  provided  by  Cleopatra. 
Antony  was  no  great  statesman  or  diplomatist ;  and  jolly 
overgrown  boy  that  he  was,  his  effective  actions  were  at 
all  times  largely  dictated  by  his  pleasurable  desires.  The 
Queen  of  Egypt  had  made  a  most  disconcerting  appeal 
to  that  spontaneous  nature,  which,  in  matters  of  this 
kind,  required  little  encouragement  from  without ;  and 
now  the  fact  that  it  seemed  wise  at  the  time  to  keep 
away  from  Rome  served  as  full  warrant  for  the  manoeuvre 
which  his  ambition  and  his  heart  jointly  urged  upon  him. 

Early  in  the  winter  of  B.C.  41,  therefore,  he  made  his 
way  to  Alexandria,  and  was  received  by  Cleopatra  into  the 
beautiful  Lochias  Palace  as  a  most  profoundly  honoured 
guest.  All  the  resources  of  that  sumptuous  establish- 
ment were  concerted  for  his  amusement,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  the  affairs  of  the  R-oman  world  were  relegated 
to  the  back  of  his  genial  mind.  In  the  case  of  Cleo- 
patra, however,  there  was  no  such  laxity.  The  Queen's 
ambitions,  fired  by  Caesar,  had  been  stirred  into  renewed 
flame  by  her  success  at  Tarsus ;  and  she  was  determined 
to  make  Antony  the  champion  of  her  cause.  From  the 
moment  when  she  had  realised  his  pliability  and  his 
susceptibility  to  her  overtures,  she  had  made  up  her  mind 

Q 


242     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


to  join  forces  with  him  in  an  attempt  upon  the  throne  of 
the  Roman  Empire ;  and  it  was  now  her  business  both  to 
fascinate  him  by  her  personal  charms  and,  by  the  nature 
of  her  entertainments,  to  demonstrate  to  him  her  weahh 
and  power. 

"  It  would  be  trifling  without  end,"  says  Plutarch,  "to 
give  a  particular  account  of  Antony's  follies  at  Alexandria." 
For  several  weeks  he  gave  himself  up  to  amusements  of 
the  most  frivolous  character,  and  to  the  enjoyment  of  a 
life  more  luxurious  than  any  he  had  ever  known.  His 
own  family  had  been  simple  in  their  style  of  living,  and 
although  he  had  taught  himself  much  in  this  regard,  and 
had  expended  a  great  deal  of  money  on  lavish  entertain- 
ments, there  were  no  means  of  obtaining  in  Rome  a 
splendour  which  could  compare  with  the  magnificence  of 
these  Alexandrian  festivities.  His  friends,  too,  many  of 
whom  were  common  actresses  and  comedians,  had  not 
been  brilliant  tutors  in  the  arts  of  entertainment ;  nor 
had  they  encouraged  him  to  provide  them  so  much  with 
refined  luxury  as  with  good  strong  drink  and  jovial 
company.  Now,  however,  in  Cleopatra's  palace,  Antony 
found  himself  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  the  devices  and 
appliances  of  the  most  advanced  culture  of  the  age ;  and 
an  appeal  was  made  to  his  senses  which  would  have  put 
the  efforts  even  of  the  extravagant  Lucullus  to  shame. 
Alexandria  has  been  called  "  the  Paris  of  the  ancient 
world,"  ^  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  the  glamour 
which  it  cast  upon  the  imagination  of  the  lusty  Roman, 
who,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  found  himself  surrounded 
by  a  group  of  cultured  men  and  women  highly  practised 
in  the  art  of  living  sumptuously.  Moreover,  he  was 
received  by  Cleopatra  as  prospective  lord  of  all  he  sur- 

^  Ferrero. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  243 


veyed,  for  the  Queen  seems  to  have  shown  him  quite 
clearly  that  all  these  things  would  be  his  if  he  would  but 
cast  in  his  lot  with  her. 

Antony  quickly  adapted  his  manners  to  those  of  the 
Alexandrians.  He  set  aside  his  Roman  dress  and  clothed 
himself  in  the  square-cut  Greek  costume,  putting  upon 
his  feet  the  white  Attic  shoes  known  as  phcecasium.  He 
seems  to  have  spoken  the  Greek  language  well ;  and  he 
now  made  himself  diplomatically  agreeable  to  the  Grecian 
nobles  who  frequented  the  court.  He  constantly  visited 
the  meeting-places  of  learned  men,  spending  much  time 
in  the  temples  and  in  the  Museum ;  and  thereby  he  won 
for  himself  an  assured  position  in  the  brilliant  society 
of  the  Queen's  Alexandrian  court,  which,  in  spite  of  its 
devotion  to  the  pleasant  follies  of  civilisation,  prided  itself 
upon  its  culture  and  learning. 

Meanwhile  he  did  not  hesitate  to  endear  himself  by 
every  means  in  his  power  to  Cleopatra.  He  knew  that 
she  desired  him,  for  dynastic  reasons,  to  become  her  legal 
husband,  and  that  there  was  no  other  man  in  the  world, 
from  her  point  of  view,  so  suitable  for  the  position  of  her 
consort.  He  knew,  also,  that  as  a  young  "widow," 
whose  first  union  had  been  so  short-lived,  Cleopatra  was 
eagerly  desirous  of  a  satisfactory  marriage  which  should 
give  her  the  comfort  of  a  strong  companion  upon  whom 
to  lean  in  her  many  hours  of  anxiety,  and  an  ardent  lover 
to  whom  she  could  turn  in  her  loneliness.  He  knew  that 
she  was  attracted  by  his  herculean  strength  and  brave 
appearance ;  and  it  must  have  been  apparent  to  him  from 
the  first  that  he  could  without  much  exertion  win  her 
devotion  almost  as  easily  as  the  great  Caesar  had  done. 
The  Queen  was  young,  passionate,  and  exceedingly 
lonely  ;  and  it  did  not  require  any  keen  perception  on  his 


244     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


part  to  show  him  how  great  was  her  need,  both  for 
poHtical  and  for  personal  reasons,  of  a  reliable  marriage. 
He  therefore  paid  court  to  his  hostess  with  confidence ; 
and  it  was  not  long  before  she  surrendered  herself  to  him 
with  all  the  eagerness  and  whole-hearted  interest  of  her 
warm,  impulsive  nature. 

The  union  was  at  once  sanctioned  by  the  court  and  the 
priesthood,  and  was  converted  in  Egypt  into  as  legal  a 
marriage  as  that  with  Caesar  had  been.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  Cleopatra  obtained  from  him  some  sort 
of  promise  that  he  would  not  desert  her  ;  and  at  this  time 
she  must  have  felt  herself  able  to  trust  him  as  implicitly 
as  she  had  trusted  the  great  Dictator.  Caesar  had  not 
played  her  false ;  he  had  taken  her  to  Rome  and  had 
made  no  secret  of  his  intention  to  raise  her  to  the  throne 
by  his  side.  In  like  manner  she  believed  that  Antony, 
virtually  Caesar's  successor,  would  create  an  empire  over 
which  they  should  jointly  rule;  and  she  must  have 
rejoiced  in  her  successful  capture  of  his  heart,  whereby 
she  had  obtained  both  a  good-natured,  handsome  lover 
and  a  bold  political  champion. 

In  the  union  between  these  two  powerful  personages 
the  historian  may  thus  see  both  a  diplomatic  and  a 
romantic  amalgamation.  Neither  Cleopatra  nor  Antony 
seem  to  me  yet  to  have  been  very  deeply  in  love,  but  I 
fancy  each  was  stirred  by  the  attractions  of  the  other, 
and  each  believed  for  the  moment  that  the  gods  had 
provided  the  mate  so  long  awaited.  Cleopatra  with  her 
dainty  beauty,  and  Antony  with  his  magnificent  physique, 
must  have  appeared  to  be  admirably  matched  by  Nature ; 
while  their  royal  and  famous  destinies  could  not,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  material  world,  have  been  more  closely  allied. 

We  have  seen  how  Antony  allowed  his  more  refined 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  245 


instincts  full  play  in  Alexandria,  and  how,  in  order  to  win 
the  Queen's  admiration,  he  showed  himself  devoted  to 
the  society  of  learned  men.  In  like  manner  Cleopatra 
gave  full  vent  to  the  more  frivolous  side  of  her  nature,  in 
order  to  render  herself  attractive  to  her  Roman  comrade, 
whose  boyish  love  of  tomfoolery  was  so  pronounced. 
Sometimes  in  the  darkness  of  the  night,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  she  would  dress  herself  in  the  clothes  of  a 
peasant  woman,  and  disguising  Antony  in  the  garments 
of  a  slave,  she  would  lead  him  through  the  streets  of  the 
city  in  search  of  adventure.  They  would  knock  ominously 
at  the  doors  or  windows  of  unknown  houses,  and  dis- 
appear like  ghosts  when  they  were  opened.  Occasionally, 
of  course,  they  were  caught  by  the  doorkeepers  or  servants, 
and,  as  Plutarch  says,  "  were  very  scurvily  answered  and 
sometimes  even  beaten  severely,  though  most  people 
guessed  who  they  were." 

Cleopatra  provided  all  manner  of  amusements  for  her 
companion.  She  would  ride  and  hunt  with  him  in  the 
desert  beyond  the  city  walls,  boat  and  fish  with  him  on 
the  sea  or  the  Mareotic  Lake,  romp  with  him  through 
the  halls  of  the  Palace,  watch  him  wrestle,  fence,  and 
exercise  himself  in  arms,  play  dice  with  him,  drink  with 
him,  and  fascinate  him  by  the  arts  of  love.  The  fol- 
lowing story  presents  a  characteristic  picture  of  the 
jovial  life  led  by  them  in  Alexandria  during  this  memor- 
able winter.  Antony  had  been  fishing  from  one  of  the 
vessels  in  the  harbour ;  but,  failing  to  make  any  catches, 
he  employed  a  diver  to  descend  into  the  water  and  to 
attach  newly-caught  fishes  to  his  hook,  which  he  then 
landed  amidst  the  applause  of  Cleopatra  and  her  friends. 
The  Queen,  however,  soon  guessed  what  was  happening, 
and  at  once  invited  a  number  of  persons  to  come  on 


246     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


the  next  day  to  witness  Antony's  dexterity.  She  then 
procured  some  preserved  fish  which  had  come  from  the 
Black  Sea,  and  instructed  a  slave  to  dive  under  the 
vessel  and  to  attach  one  to  the  hook  as  soon  as  it 
should  strike  the  water.  This  having  been  done,  Antony 
drew  to  the  surface  the  salted  fish,  the  appearance  of 
which  was  greeted  with  hearty  laughter ;  whereupon 
Cleopatra,  turning  to  the  discomfited  angler,  tactfully 
said,  "  Leave  the  fishing-rod,  general,  to  us  poor  sover- 
eigns of  Pharos  and  Canopus :  your  game  is  cities, 
provinces,  and  kingdoms." 

During  this  winter  Antony  and  the  Queen  together 
founded  a  kind  of  society  or  club  which  they  named 
the  Amimetobioi,  or  Inimitable  Livers,  the  members  of 
which  entertained  one  another  in  turn  each  day  in  the 
most  extravagant  manner.  Antony,  it  would  seem  prob- 
able, was  the  president  of  this  society ;  and  two  inscrip- 
tions have  been  found  in  which  he  is  named  "  The 
Inimitable,"  perhaps  not  without  reference  to  this  office. 
A  story  told  by  a  certain  Philotas,  a  medical  student 
at  that  time  residing  in  Alexandria,  will  best  illustrate 
the  prodigality  of  the  feasts  provided  by  the  members 
of  this  club.  Philotas  was  one  day  visiting  the  kitchens 
of  Cleopatra's  palace,  and  was  surprised  to  see  no  less 
than  eight  wild  boars  roasting  whole.  "  You  evidently 
have  a  great  number  of  guests  to-day,"  he  said  to  the 
cook;  to  which  the  latter  replied,  "No,  there  are  not 
above  twelve  to  dine,  but  the  meat  has  to  be  served 
up  just  roasted  to  a  turn:  and  maybe  Antony  will 
wish  to  dine  now,  maybe  not  for  an  hour ;  yet  if  any- 
thing is  even  one  minute  ill-timed  it  will  be  spoilt,  so 
that  not  one  but  many  meals  must  be  in  readiness,  as 
it  is  impossible  to  guess  at  his  dining-hour." 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  247 


As  an  example  of  the  food  served  at  these  Alexandrian 
banquets,  I  may  be  permitted  to  give  a  list  of  the  dishes 
provided  some  years  previously  at  a  dinner  given  in 
Rome  by  Mucins  Lentulus  Niger,  at  which  Julius  Caesar 
had  been  one  of  the  guests ;  but  it  is  to  be  remem- 
bered that  Cleopatra's  feasts  are  thought  to  have  been 
far  more  prodigious  than  any  known  in  Rome.  The 
memi  is  as  follows:  Sea  -  hedgehogs ;  oysters;  mussels; 
sphondyli ;  fieldfares  with  asparagus ;  fattened  fowls ; 
oyster  and  mussel  pasties ;  black  and  white  sea-acorns  ; 
sphondyli  again  ;  glycimarides  ;  sea-nettles  ;  becaficoes  ; 
roe-ribs;  boar's  ribs;  fowls  dressed  with  flour;  becafi- 
coes again ;  purple  shell-fish  of  two  kinds ;  sow's  udder ; 
boar's  head ;  fish  pasties ;  ducks ;  boiled  teals ;  hares  ; 
roasted  fowls ;  starch-pastry ;  and  Pontic  pastry.  Varro, 
in  one  of  his  satires,  mentions  some  of  the  most  noted 
foreign  delicacies  which  were  to  be  found  upon  the 
tables  of  the  rich.  These  include  peacocks  from  Samos ; 
grouse  from  Phrygia ;  cranes  from  Melos ;  kids  from 
Ambracia ;  tunny-fish  from  Chalcedon ;  muraenas  from 
the  Straits  of  Gades ;  ass-fish  from  Pessinus;  oysters 
and  scallops  from  Tarentum ;  sturgeons  from  Rhodes ; 
scarus-fish  from  Cilicia ;  nuts  from  Thasos ;  and  acorns 
from  Spain.  The  vegetables  then  known  included  most 
of  those  now  eaten,  with  the  notable  exception,  of  course, 
of  potatoes.-^  The  main  meal  of  the  day,  the  ccena,  was 
often  prolonged  into  a  drinking  party,  known  as  commis- 
satio,  at  which  an  Arbiter  bibendi,  or  Master  of  Revels, 
was  appointed  by  the  throwing  of  dice,  whose  duty  it 
was  to  mix  the  wine  in  a  large  bowl.  The  diners  lay 
upon  couches  usually  arranged  round  three  sides  of  the 
table,  and  they  ate  their  food  with  their  fingers.  Chap- 

^  Marquardt :  Privatleben,  p.  409. 


248     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


lets  of  flowers  were  placed  upon  their  heads,  cinnamon 
was  sprinkled  upon  the  hair,  and  sweet  perfumes  were 
thrown  upon  their  bodies,  and  sometimes  even  mixed 
with  the  wines.  During  the  meals  the  guests  were  en- 
tertained by  the  performances  of  dancing-girls,  musicians, 
actors,  acrobats,  clowns,  dwarfs,  or  even  gladiators ;  and 
afterwards  dice  -  throwing  and  other  games  of  chance 
were  indulged  in.  The  decoration  of  the  rooms  and  the 
splendour  of  the  furniture  and  plate  were  always  very 
carefully  considered,  Cleopatra's  banquets  being  specially 
noteworthy  for  the  magnificence  of  the  table  services. 
These  dishes  and  drinking-vessels,  which  the  Queen  was 
wont  modestly  to  describe  as  her  Kerama  or  "earthen- 
ware," were  usually  made  of  gold  and  silver  encrusted 
with  precious  stones ;  and  so  famous  were  they  for  their 
beauty  of  workmanship  that  three  centuries  later  they 
formed  still  a  standard  of  perfection.  Queen  Zenobia  of 
Palmyra  being  related  to  have  collected  them  eagerly 
for  her  own  use. 

Thus,  with  feasting,  merry-making,  and  amusements 
of  all  kinds,  the  winter  slipped  by.  To  a  large  extent 
Plutarch  is  justified  in  stating  that  in  Alexandria  Antony 
"  squandered  that  most  costly  of  all  valuables,  time " ; 
but  the  months  were  not  altogether  wasted.  He  and 
Cleopatra  had  cemented  their  alliance  by  living  together 
in  the  most  intimate  relations ;  and  both  now  thought 
it  probable  that  when  the  time  came  for  the  attempted 
overthrow  of  Octavian  they  would  fight  their  battle  side 
by  side.  By  becoming  Cleopatra's  lover,  and  by  appeal- 
ing to  the  purely  instinctive  side  of  her  nature,  Antony 
had  obtained  from  her  the  whole-hearted  promise  of 
Egypt's  support  in  all  his  undertakings ;  and  these  happy 
winter  months  in  Alexandria  could  not  have  seemed  to 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  249 


him  to  be  wasted  when  each  day  the  powerful  young 
Queen  come  to  be  more  completely  at  his  beck  and 
call.  The  course  of  Cleopatra's  love  for  Antony  seems 
to  have  followed  almost  precisely  the  same  lines  as  had 
her  love  for  Julius  Caesar.  Inspired  at  first  by  a  political 
motive,  she  had  come  to  feel  a  genuine  and  romantic 
affection  for  her  Roman  consort ;  and  the  intimacies 
which  ensued,  though  largely  due  to  the  weaknesses  of 
the  flesh,  seemed  to  find  full  justification  in  the  fact 
that  her  dynastic  ambitions  were  furthered  by  this  means. 
Cleopatra  thought  of  Antony  as  her  husband,  and  she 
wished  to  be  regarded  as  his  wife.  The  fact  that  no 
public  marriage  had  taken  place  was  of  little  conse- 
quence ;  for  she,  as  goddess  and  Queen,  must  have  felt 
herself  exempt  from  the  common  law,  and  at  perfect 
liberty  to  contract  whatever  union  seemed  desirable  to 
her  for  the  good  of  her  country  and  dynasty,  and  for 
the  satisfaction  of  her  own  womanly  instincts.  Early 
in  the  year  B.C.  40  she  and  Antony  became  aware  that 
their  union  was  to  be  fruitful ;  and  this  fact  must  have 
made  Cleopatra  more  than  ever  anxious  to  keep  Antony 
in  Alexandria  with  her,  and  to  bind  him  to  her  by 
causing  him  to  be  recognised  as  her  consort.  He  was 
not  willing,  however,  to  assume  the  rank  and  status  of 
King  of  Egypt ;  for  such  a  move  would  inevitably  pre- 
cipitate the  quarrel  with  Octavian,  and  he  would  then 
be  obliged  to  stake  all  on  an  immediate  war  with  the 
faction  which  would  assuredly  come  to  be  recognised 
as  the  legitimate  Roman  party.  This  unwillingness  on 
his  part  to  bind  himself  to  her  must  have  caused  her 
some  misgiving;  and,  as  the  winter  drew  to  a  close,  I 
think  that  the  Queen  must  have  felt  somewhat  appre- 
hensive in  regard  to  Antony's  sincerity. 


250     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Setting  aside  all  sentimental  factors  in  the  situation, 
and  leaving  out  of  consideration  for  the  moment  all 
physical  causes  of  the  alliance,  it  will  be  seen  that 
Antony's  position  was  now  more  satisfactory  than  was 
that  of  the  often  sorely  perplexed  Queen.  By  spending 
the  winter  at  Alexandria  the  Roman  Triumvir  had  kept 
himself  aloof  from  the  political  troubles  in  Italy  at  a 
time  when  his  presence  at  home  might  have  complicated 
matters  to  his  own  disadvantage ;  he  had  obtained  the 
full  support  of  Egyptian  wealth  and  Egyptian  arms 
should  he  require  them  ;  and  he  had  prepared  the  way 
for  a  definite  marriage  with  Cleopatra  at  the  moment 
when  he  should  desire  her  partnership  in  the  founda- 
tion of  a  great  monarchy  such  as  that  for  which  Julius 
Caesar'  had  striven.  He  had  not  yet  irrevocably  com- 
promised himself,  and  he  was  free  to  return  to  his 
Roman  order  of  life  with  superficially  clean  hands. 
Nobody  in  Rome  would  think  the  less  of  him  for  having 
combined  a  certain  amount  of  pleasure  with  the  obvious 
business  which  had  called  him  to  Egypt ;  and  his  friends 
would  certainly  be  as  easily  persuaded  to  accept  the 
political  excuses  which  he  would  advance  for  his  lengthy 
residence  in  Alexandria  as  the  Caesarian  party  had  been 
to  admit  those  put  forward  by  the  great  Dictator  under 
very  similar  circumstances.  Like  Julius  Caesar  and  like 
Pompey,  Antony  was  certainly  justified  in  making  him- 
self the  patron  of  the  wealthy  Egyptian  court ;  and  all 
Roman  statesmen  were  aware  how  desirable  it  was  at 
this  juncture  for  a  party  leader  to  cement  an  alliance 
with  the  powerful  Queen  of  that  country. 

On  the  part  of  Cleopatra,  however,  the  circumstances 
were  far  less  happy.  She  had  staked  all  on  the  alliance 
with  Antony — her  personal  honour  and  prestige  as  well 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  251 


as  her  dynasty's  future ;  and  in  return  for  her  great  gifts 
she  must  have  been  beginning  to  feel  that  she  had  re- 
ceived nothing  save  vague  promises  and  unsatisfactory 
assurances.  Without  Antony's  help  not  only  would  she 
lose  all  hope  of  an  Egypto  -  Roman  throne  for  herself 
and  her  son  Caesarion,  but  she  would  inevitably  fail  to 
keep  Egypt  from  absorption  into  the  Roman  dominions. 
There  were  only  two  mighty  leaders  at  that  time  in  the 
Roman  world — Octavian  and  Antony ;  and  Octavian  was 
her  relentless  enemy,  for  the  reason  that  her  son  Csesarion 
was  his  rival  in  the  claim  on  the  Dictator's  worldly  and 
political  estate.  Failing  the  support  of  Antony  there 
were  no  means  of  retaining  her  country's  liberty,  except 
perhaps  by  the  desperate  eventuality  of  some  sort  of 
alliance  with  Parthia.  It  must  have  occurred  to  her 
that  Egypt,  with  its  growing  trade  with  southern  India, 
might  join  forces  with  Parthia,  whose  influence  in 
northern  India  must  have  been  great,  and  might  thus 
effect  an  amalgamation  of  nations  hostile  to  Rome,  which 
in  a  vast  semicircle  should  include  Egypt,  Ethiopia, 
Arabia,  Persia,  India,  Scythia,  Parthia,  Armenia,  Syria, 
and  perhaps  Asia  Minor.  Such  a  combination  might 
be  expected  to  sweep  Rome  from  the  face  of  the  earth ; 
but  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  huge  union  were 
almost  insuperable,  and  the  alliance  with  Antony  was 
infinitely  more  tangible.  Yet,  towards  the  end  of  the 
winter,  she  must  constantly  have  asked  herself  whether 
she  could  trust  Antony,  to  whom  she  had  given  so  much. 
She  loved  him,  she  had  given  herself  to  him;  but  she 
must  have  known  him  to  be  unreliable,  inconsequent, 
and,  in  certain  aspects,  merely  an  overgrown  boy.  The 
stakes  for  which  she  was  fighting  were  so  absolutely 
essential  to  herself  and  to  her  country:  the  champion 


252     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


whose  services  she  had  enhsted  was  so  light-hearted, 
so  reluctant  to  pledge  himself.  And  now  that  she  was 
about  to  bear  him  a  son,  and  thus  to  bring  before  his 
wayward  notice  the  grave  responsibilities  which  she  felt 
he  had  so  flippantly  undertaken,  would  he  stand  by  her 
as  Caesar  had  done,  or  would  he  desert  her  ? 

Her  feelings  may  be  imagined,  therefore,  when  in 
February  B.C.  40,  Antony  told  her  that  he  had  received 
disconcerting  news  from  Rome  and  from  Syria,  and  that 
he  must  leave  her  at  once.  The  news  from  Rome  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  very  definite,  but  it  gave  him 
to  understand  that  his  wife  and  his  brother  had  come 
to  actual  blows  with  Octavian,  and,  being  worsted,  had 
fled  from  Italy.  From  Syria,  however,  came  a  very 
urgent  despatch,  in  regard  to  which  there  could  be  no 
doubts.  Some  of  the  Syrian  princes  whom  he  had 
deposed  in  the  previous  autumn,  together  with  Antig- 
onus,  whose  claims  to  the  throne  of  Palestine  he  had 
rejected,  had  made  an  alliance  with  the  Parthians  and 
were  marching  down  from  the  north  -  east  against 
Decimus  Saxa,  the  governor  of  Syria.  The  Roman 
forces  in  that  country  were  few  in  number,  consisting 
for  the  most  part  of  the  remnants  of  the  army  of  Brutus 
and  Cassius ;  and  they  could  hardly  be  expected  to  put 
up  a  good  fight  against  the  invaders.  Antony's  own 
trusted  legions  were  now  stationed  in  Italy,  Gaul,  and 
Macedonia  ;  and  there  were  many  grave  reasons  for  their 
retention  in  their  present  quarters.  The  situation,  there- 
fore, was  very  serious,  and  Antony  was  obliged  to  bring 
his  pleasant  visit  to  Alexandria  to  an  abrupt  end. 
Plutarch  describes  him  as  "  rousing  himself  with  diffi- 
culty from  sleep,  and  shaking  off  the  fumes  of  wine " 
in  preparation  for  his  departure ;  but  I  do  not  think 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  253 


that  his  winter  had  been  so  debauched  as  these  words 
suggest.  He  had  combined  business  and  pleasure,  as 
the  saying  is,  and  at  times  had  lost  sight  of  the  one 
in  his  eager  prosecution  of  the  other;  but,  looking  at 
the  matter  purely  from  a  hygienic  point  of  view,  it  seems 
probable  that  the  hunting,  riding,  and  military  exercises 
of  which  Plutarch  speaks,  had  kept  him  in  a  fairly  healthy 
condition  in  spite  of  the  stupendous  character  of  the 
meals  set  before  him. 

The  parting  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra  early  in  March 
must  have  contained  in  it  an  element  of  real  tragedy. 
He  could  not  tell  what  difficulties  were  in  store  for  him, 
and  at  the  moment  he  had  not  asked  the  Queen  for  any 
military  help.  He  must  have  bade  her  lie  low  until  he 
was  able  to  tell  her  in  what  manner  she  could  best  help 
their  cause ;  and  thereby  he  consigned  her  to  a  period 
of  deep  anxiety  and  sustained  worry.  In  loneliness  she 
would  have  to  face  her  coming  confinement,  and,  like 
a  deserted  courtesan,  would  have  to  nurse  a  fatherless 
child.  She  would  have  to  hold  her  throne  without  the 
comfort  of  a  husband's  advice ;  and  in  all  things  she 
would  once  more  be  obliged  to  live  the  dreary  life  of 
a  solitary  unmated  Queen.  It  was  a  miserable  prospect, 
but,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  following  chapter,  the  actual 
event  proved  to  be  far  more  distressing  than  she  had 
expected ;  for,  as  Antony  sailed  out  of  the  harbour  of 
Alexandria,  and  was  shut  out  from  sight  behind  the 
mighty  tower  of  Pharos,  Cleopatra  did  not  know  that 
she  would  not  see  his  face  again  for  four  long  years. 


254 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  ALLIANCE  RENEWED  BETWEEN  CLEOPATRA 
AND  ANTONY. 

In  the  autumn  of  the  year  B.C.  40,  some  six  months 
after  the  departure  of  Antony,  Cleopatra  gave  birth  to 
twins,  a  boy  and  a  girl,  whom  she  named  Alexander 
Helios  and  Cleopatra  Selene,  the  Sun  and  the  Moon. 
With  this  event  she  passes  almost  entirely  from  the 
pages  of  history  for  more  than  three  years,  and  we 
hear  hardly  anything  of  her  doings  until  the  beginning 
of  B.C.  36.  During  this  time  she  must  have  been  con- 
siderably occupied  in  governing  her  own  kingdom  and 
in  watching,  with  a  kind  of  despair,  the  complicated 
events  in  the  Roman  world.  Despatches  from  Europe 
must  have  come  to  her  from  time  to  time  telling  of  the 
progress  of  affairs,  but  almost  all  the  news  which  she 
thus  received  was  disappointing  and  disconcerting  to 
her ;  and  one  must  suppose  that  she  passed  these  years 
in  very  deep  sadness  and  depression.  I  do  not  think 
that  any  historian  has  attempted  to  point  out  to  his 
readers  the  painful  condition  of  disillusionment  in  which 
the  little  Queen  now  found  herself.  When  Antony  left 
her  she  must  have  expected  him  either  to  return  soon 
to  her,  or  presently  to  send  his  lieutenants  to  bring  her 
to  him ;  but  the  weeks  passed  and  no  such  event  took 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  255 


place.  While  she  suffered  all  the  misery  of  lonely  child- 
birth, her  consort  was  engaged  in  absorbing  affairs  in 
which  she  played  no  immediate  part ;  and  it  seems 
certain  that  in  the  stress  of  his  desperate  circumstances 
the  inconsequent  Antony  had  put  her  almost  entirely 
from  his  thoughts. 

When  he  left  her  in  the  spring  of  B.C.  40  he  sailed 
straight  across  the  Mediterranean  to  Tyre,  where  he 
learnt  to  his  dismay  that  practically  all  Syria  and 
Phoenicia  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Parthians, 
and  that  there  was  no  chance  of  resisting  their  advance 
successfully  with  the  troops  now  holding  the  few  remain- 
ing seaport  towns.  He  therefore  hastened  with  200 
ships  by  Cyprus  and  Rhodes  to  Greece,  abandoning 
Syria  for  the  time  being  to  the  enemy.  Arriving  at 
Ephesus,  he  heard  details  of  the  troubles  in  Italy ;  how 
his  supporters  had  been  besieged  by  Octavian  in  Perugia, 
which  had  at  length  been  captured ;  and  how  all  his 
friends  and  relatives  had  fled  from  Italy.  His  wife 
Fulvia,  he  was  told,  escorted  by  3000  cavalry,  had  sailed 
from  Brundisium  for  Greece,  and  would  soon  join  him 
there;  and  his  mother,  Julia,  had  fled  to  the  popular 
hero,  Sextus  Pompeius,  the  outlawed  son  of  the  great 
Pompey,  who  had  received  her  very  kindly.  Thus,  not 
only  was  Italy  shut  to  Antony,  since  Octavian  was  now 
sole  master  of  the  country,  but  he  seemed  likely  also 
to  be  turned  out  of  his  eastern  provinces  by  the  advance 
of  the  Parthians.  His  position  was  a  desperate  one ; 
and  he  must  now  have  both  reproached  himself  very 
deeply  for  his  waste  of  time  in  Alexandria  and  blamed 
his  relations  for  their  impetuosity  in  making  war  against 
Octavian. 

Towards  the  end  of  June  Antony  arrived  in  Athens, 


256     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


and  there  he  was  obHged  to  go  through  the  ordeal  of 
meeting  the  domineering  Fulvia,  of  whom  he  was  not 
a  little  afraid,  more  especially  in  view  of  his  notorious 
intrigue  with  the  Queen  of  Egypt.  The  ensuing  inter- 
views between  them  must  have  been  of  a  very  painful 
character,  Fulvia  probably  bitterly  reproved  her  errant 
husband  for  deserting  her  and  for  remaining  so  long  with 
Cleopatra,  while  Antony  must  have  abused  her  roundly 
for  making  so  disastrous  a  mess  of  his  affairs  in  Italy. 
Ultimately  the  unfortunate  woman  seems  to  have  been 
crushed  and  dispirited  by  Antony's  continued  anger ;  and 
having  fallen  ill  while  staying  at  Sicyon,  some  sixty  miles 
west  of  Athens,  and  lacking  the  desire  to  live,  she  there 
died  in  the  month  of  August.  Meanwhile  Antony,  having 
made  an  alliance  with  Sextus  Pompeius,  was  ravaging 
the  coasts  of  Italy  in  a  rather  futile  attempt  to  regain 
some  of  his  lost  prestige ;  but  no  sooner  was  the  death 
of  Fulvia  announced  than  he  shifted  the  entire  blame  for 
the  war  on  to  his  late  wife's  shoulders,  and  speedily  made 
his  peace  with  Octavian.  The  two  rivals  met  at  Brun- 
disium  in  September  B.C.  40,  and  a  treaty  was  made 
between  them  by  which  the  peace  of  the  Roman  world 
was  expected  to  be  assured  for  some  years  to  come.  It 
was  arranged  that  Octavian  should  remain  autocrat  in 
Italy,  and  should  hold  all  the  European  provinces,  in- 
cluding Dalmatia  and  Illyria ;  and  that  Antony  should 
be  master  of  the  East,  his  dominions  comprising  Mace- 
donia, Greece,  Bithynia,  Asia,  Syria,  and  Cyrene.  The 
remaining  provinces  of  North  Africa,  west  of  Cyrene, 
fell  to  the  lot  of  the  third  Triumvir,  the  insignificant 
Lepidus.  This  treaty  was  sealed  by  the  marriage  of 
Antony  with  Octavia,  the  sister  of  Octavian,  a  young 
woman  who  had  been  left  a  widow  some  months  pre- 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  257 


viously,  and  the  wedding  was  celebrated  in  Rome  in 
October  B.C.  40,  the  populace  showing  peculiar  pleasure 
at  seeing  the  two  rivals,  whose  quarrels  had  caused  such 
bloodshed  and  misery,  thus  fraternising  in  the  streets  of 
the  capital. 

The  consternation  of  Cleopatra,  when  the  news  of 
Antony's  marriage  reached  her,  must  have  been  sad  to 
witness.  The  twins  whom  she  had  borne  to  him  were 
but  a  few  weeks  old  at  the  time  when  their  father's 
perfidy  was  thus  made  known  to  her ;  and  bitterly  must 
she  have  chided  herself  for  ever  putting  her  trust  in  so 
unstable  a  man.  It  now  seemed  to  her  that  he  had 
come  to  Alexandria  as  it  were  to  fleece  her  of  her  wealth, 
and  she,  falling  a  victim  to  his  false  protestations  of  love, 
had  given  her  all  to  him,  only  to  be  deserted  when  most 
she  needed  him.  With  the  news  of  his  marriage,  her 
hopes  of  obtaining  a  vast  kingdom  for  herself  and  for 
Caesar's  son  were  driven  from  her  mind,  and  her  plans 
for  the  future  had  to  be  diverted  into  other  directions. 
She  must  have  determined  at  once  to  give  no  more 
assistance  to  Antony,  either  in  money  or  in  materials 
of  war ;  and  we  have  no  evidence  of  any  such  help 
being  offered  to  him  in  the  military  operations  which 
ensued  during  the  next  two  years.  Cleopatra  had  per- 
haps known  Antony's  new  wife  in  Rome,  and  certainly 
she  must  have  heard  much  of  her  charms  and  her  good- 
ness. Plutarch  tells  us  that  Octavia  was  younger  and 
more  beautiful  than  the  Queen,  and  one  may  therefore 
understand  how  greatly  Cleopatra  must  have  suffered 
at  this  time.  Not  only  was  her  heart  heavy  with  the 
thought  of  the  miscarriage  of  all  her  schemes,  but  her 
mind  it  would  seem  was  aflame  with  womanly  jealousy. 

In  the  following  year,  B.C.  39,  by  the  force  of  public 

R 


258     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


opinion,  Sextus  Pompeius  was  admitted  to  the  general 
peace,  the  daughter  of  the  sea-rover  marrying  Marcellus, 
the  son  of  Octavian.  The  agreement  was  made  at 
Misenum  (not  far  from  Naples),  and  was  celebrated  by 
a  banquet  which  was  given  by  Sextus  Pompeius  on 
board  his  flag-ship,  a  galley  of  six  banks  of  oars,  "  the 
only  house,"  as  the  host  declared,  "  that  Pompey  is  heir 
to  of  his  father's."  During  the  feast  the  guests  drank 
heavily,  and  presently  many  irresponsible  jests  began 
to  be  made  in  regard  to  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  Antony 
very  naturally  was  annoyed  at  the  remarks  which  were 
passed,  and  there  seems  to  have  been  some  danger  of 
a  fracas.  Observing  this,  a  pirate-chief  named  Menas, 
who  was  one  of  the  guests,  whispered  to  Sextus  :  "  Shall 
I  cut  the  cables  and  make  you  master  of  the  whole 
Roman  Empire  ?  "  "  Menas,"  replied  he,  after  a  moment's 
thought,  "  this  might  have  been  done  without  telling  me, 
but  now  we  must  rest  content.  I  cannot  break  my 
word."  Thus  Antony  was  saved  from  assassination,  and 
incidentally  it  may  be  remarked  that  had  he  been  done 
to  death  at  this  time,  history  would  probably  have  had 
to  record  an  alliance  between  Sextus  and  Cleopatra 
directed  against  Octavian,  which  might  have  been  as 
fruitful  of  romantic  incident  as  was  the  story  which  has 
here  to  be  related.  We  hear  vaguely  of  some  sort  of 
negotiations  between  Sextus  and  the  Queen,  and  it  is 
very  probable  that  with  his  rise  to  a  position  of  import- 
ance Cleopatra  would  have  attempted  to  make  an  alliance 
with  this  son  of  Egypt's  former  patron. 

In  September  B.C.  39,  Octavia  presented  Antony  with 
a  daughter  who  was  called  Antonia,  and  who  subse- 
quently became  the  grandmother  of  the  Emperor  Nero. 
Shortly  after  this  he  took  up  his  quarters  at  Athens, 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  259 


where  he  threw  himself  as  keenly  into  the  life  of  the 
Athenians  as  he  had  into  that  of  the  Alexandrians.  He 
dressed  himself  in  the  Greek  manner,  with  certain  Oriental 
touches,  and  it  was  noticed  that  he  ceased  to  take  any 
interest  in  Roman  affairs.  He  feasted  sumptuously, 
drank  heavily,  spent  a  very  great  deal  of  money,  and 
wasted  any  amount  of  time.  The  habits  of  the  East 
appealed  to  him,  and  in  his  administration  he  adopted 
the  methods  sometimes  practised  by  Greeks  in  the  Orient. 
He  abolished  the  Roman  governorships  in  many  of  the 
provinces  under  his  control,  converting  them  into  vassal 
kingdoms.  Thus  Herod  was  created  King  of  Judea; 
Darius,  son  of  Pharnaces,  was  made  King  of  Pontus; 
Amyntas  was  raised  to  the  throne  of  Pisidia ;  Polemo 
was  given  the  crown  of  Lycaonia,  and  so  on.  His  rule 
was  mild  and  kindly,  though  despotic ;  and  on  all  sides 
he  was  hailed  as  the  jolly  god  Dionysos,  or  Bacchus, 
come  to  earth.  Like  Julius  Caesar,  he  was  quite  willing 
to  accept  divinity,  and  he  even  went  so  far  as  personally 
to  take  the  place  of  the  statue  of  Dionysos  in  the  temple 
of  that  god,  and  to  go  through  the  mystical  ceremony  of 
marriage  to  Athene  at  Athens.  His  popularity  was  im- 
mense, and  this  assumption  of  a  godhead  was  received 
quite  favourably  by  the  Athenians ;  but  when  one  of  his 
generals,  Ventidius  Bassus,  who  had  been  sent  to  check 
the  advance  of  the  Parthians,  returned  with  the  news 
that  he  had  completely  defeated  them,  public  enthusiasm 
knew  no  bounds,  and  Antony  was  fSted  and  entertained 
in  the  most  astonishing  manner. 

The  contrast  between  Antony's  benevolent  government 
of  his  eastern  provinces  and  Octavian's  conduct  in  the 
west  was  striking.  Octavian  was  a  curious  -  tempered 
man,  morose,  quietly  cruel,  and  secretly  vicious.  So 


26o     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


many  persons  were  tortured  and  crucified  by  him  that 
he  came  to  be  known  as  the  "  Executioner."  His  manner 
was  imperturbable  and  always  controlled  in  public ;  but 
in  private  life  at  this  time  he  indulged  in  the  wildest 
debauches,  gambled,  and  surrounded  himself  with  the 
lowest  companions.  His  rule  in  Italy  in  these  days 
constituted  a  Reign  of  Terror ;  and  large  numbers  of 
the  populace  hated  the  very  sight  of  him.  His  appear- 
ance was  unimposing,  for  he  was  somewhat  short  and  was 
careless  in  his  deportment ;  while,  although  his  face  was 
handsome,  it  had  certain  very  marked  defects.  His  com- 
plexion was  very  sallow  and  unhealthy,  his  skin  being 
covered  with  spots,  and  his  teeth  were  much  decayed ; 
but  his  eyes  were  large  and  remarkably  brilliant,  a  fact 
of  which  he  was  peculiarly  proud.  He  did  not  look 
well  groomed  or  clean,  and  he  was  notably  averse  to 
taking  a  bath,  though  he  did  not  object  to  an  occasional 
steaming,  or  Turkish  bath,  as  we  should  now  call  it. 
He  was  eccentric  in  his  dress,  though  precise  and 
correct  in  business  affairs.  He  disliked  the  sunshine, 
and  always  wore  a  broad  -  brimmed  hat  to  protect  his 
head  from  its  brilliancy ;  but  at  the  same  time  he  de- 
tested cold  weather,  and  in  winter  he  is  said  to  have 
worn  a  thick  toga,  at  least  four  tunics,  a  shirt,  and  a 
flannel  stomacher,  while  his  legs  and  thighs  were  swathed 
in  yards  of  warm  cloth.  In  spite  of  this  he  was  con- 
stantly suffering  from  colds  in  his  head,  and  was  always 
sneezing  and  snuffling.  His  liver,  too,  was  generally  out 
of  order,  a  fact  to  which  perhaps  his  ill-temper  may  be 
attributed.  His  clothes  were  all  made  at  home  by  his 
wife  and  sister,  and  fitted  him  badly;  and  his  light- 
brown,  curly  hair  always  looked  unbrushed.  He  was 
a  poor  general,  but  an  able  statesman ;  and  his  cold 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  261 


nature,  which  was  lacking  in  all  ardour  as  was  his  per- 
sonality in  all  magnetism,  caused  him  to  be  better  fitted 
for  the  office  than  for  the  public  platform.  He  was  not 
what  would  now  be  called  a  gentleman :  he  was,  indeed, 
very  distinctly  a  parvenu.  His  grandfather  had  been  a 
wealthy  money-lender  of  bourgeois  origin,  and  his  father 
had  raised  himself  by  this  ill-gotten  wealth  to  a  posi- 
tion in  Roman  society,  and  had  married  into  Caesar's 
family. 

These  facts  were  not  calculated  to  give  him  much 
of  a  position  in  public  esteem  :  and  there  was  no  ques- 
tion at  this  time  that  Antony  was  the  popular  hero, 
while  Sextus  Pompeius,  the  former  outlaw,  was  fast 
rising  in  favour.  In  the  spring  of  B.C.  38  Octavian 
decided  to  make  war  upon  this  roving  son  of  the  great 
Pompey,  and  he  asked  Antony  to  aid  him  in  the 
undertaking.  The  latter  made  some  attempt  to  prevent 
the  war,  but  his  efforts  were  not  successful.  In  the 
following  July,  to  the  delight  of  a  large  number  of 
Romans,  Octavian  was  badly  defeated  by  Sextus ;  and 
Caesar's  nephew  thus  lost  a  very  considerable  amount 
of  prestige.  At  about  the  same  time  Antony's  repu- 
tation made  an  equally  extensive  gain,  for  in  June 
Ventidius  Bassus,  acting  under  Antony's  directions, 
again  defeated  the  Parthians,  Pacorus,  the  King's  son, 
being  killed  in  the  battle.  The  news  stirred  the  Romans 
to  wild  enthusiasm.  At  last,  after  sixteen  years,  Crassus  ^ 
had  been  avenged ;  and  Antony  appeared  to  have  put 
into  execution  with  the  utmost  ease  the  plans  of  the  late 
Dictator  in  regard  to  the  Parthians,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  Octavian,  the  Dictator's  nephew,  had  failed  even 
to  suppress  the  sea-roving  Pompeians.    A  Triumph  was 

1  Page  59. 


262     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


decreed  both  for  Antony  and  for  Ventidius,  and  before 
the  end  of  the  year  this  took  place. 

In  January  B.C.  37  the  Triumvirate,  which  had  then 
expired,  was  renewed  for  a  period  of  five  years,  in  spite 
of  a  very  considerable  amount  of  friction  between  the 
happy-go-lucky  Antony  and  the  morose  Octavian.  At 
length  these  quarrels  were  patched  up  by  means  of  an 
agreement  whereby  Antony  gave  Octavian  130  ships  with 
which  to  fight  Sextus  Pompeius,  and  Octavian  handed 
over  some  21,000  legionaries  to  Antony  for  his  Parthian 
war.  In  this  agreement  it  will  be  observed  that  Antony, 
in  order  to  obtain  troops,  sacrificed  the  man  who  had 
befriended  his  mother  and  who  had  assisted  his  cause 
against  Octavian  at  a  time  when  his  fortunes  were  at  a 
low  ebb ;  and  it  must  be  presumed,  therefore,  that  his 
desire  to  conquer  Parthia  and  to  penetrate  far  into  the 
Orient  was  now  of  such  absorbing  importance  to  him 
that  all  other  considerations  were  abrogated  by  it. 
Antony,  in  fact,  enthusiastically  contemplating  an  en- 
larged eastern  empire,  desired  to  have  no  part  in  the 
concerns  of  the  west ;  and  he  cared  not  one  jot  what  fate 
awaited  his  late  ally,  Sextus,  who,  he  felt,  was  certain  in 
any  case  ultimately  to  go  down  before  Octavian.  He 
was  beginning,  indeed,  to  trouble  himself  very  little  in 
regard  to  Octavian  either;  for  he  now  seems  to  have 
thought  that,  when  the  Orient  had  been  conquered  and 
consolidated,  he  would  probably  be  able  to  capture  the 
Occident  also  from  the  cruel  hands  of  his  unpopular  rival 
with  little  difficulty.  Two  years  previously  he  had  found 
it  necessary  to  keep  himself  on  friendly  terms  with 
Octavian  at  all  costs,  and  for  this  reason  he  had  aban- 
doned Cleopatra  with  brutal  callousness.  Now,  however, 
his  position  was  such  that  he  was  able  to  defy  Caesar's 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  263 


nephew,  and  the  presentation  to  him  of  the  130  ships 
was  no  more  than  a  shrewd  business  deal,  whereby  he 
had  obtained  a  new  contingent  of  troops.  One  sees  that 
his  thoughts  were  turning  once  more  towards  the  Queen 
of  Egypt ;  and  he  seems  at  this  time  to  have  recalled  to 
mind  both  the  pleasure  afforded  him  by  her  brilliant 
society  and  the  importance  to  himself  of  the  position 
which  she  held  in  eastern  affairs.  The  Egyptian  navy 
was  large  and  well-equipped,  and  the  deficiency  in  his 
own  fleet  due  to  his  gift  to  Octavian  might  easily  be 
made  good  by  the  Queen. 

In  the  autumn  of  B.C.  37  these  considerations  bore 
their  inevitable  fruit.  On  his  way  to  Corfu,  in  pursuit 
of  his  Parthian  schemes,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
he  would  once  and  for  all  cut  himself  off  from  Rome 
until  that  day  when  he  should  return  to  it  as  the  earth's 
conqueror.  He  therefore  sent  his  wife  Octavia  back  to 
Italy,  determined  never  to  see  her  again ;  and  at  the 
same  time  he  despached  a  certain  Fonteius  Capito  to 
Alexandria  to  invite  Cleopatra  to  meet  him  in  Syria. 
Octavia  was  a  woman  of  extreme  sweetness,  goodness, 
and  domesticity.  Her  gentle  influence  always  made  for 
peace ;  and  her  invariable  good  behaviour  and  meekness 
must  have  almost  driven  Antony  crazy.  No  doubt  she 
wanted  to  make  his  clothes  for  him,  as  she  had  made 
those  of  her  brother ;  and  she  seems  always  to  have  been 
anxious  to  bring  before  his  notice,  in  her  sweet  way,  the 
charms  of  old-fashioned,  respectable,  family  life,  a  con- 
dition which  absolutely  nauseated  Antony.  She  now 
accepted  her  marching  orders  with  a  wifely  meekness 
which  can  hardly  command  one's  respect  ;  and  in 
pathetic  obedience  she  returned  forthwith  to  Rome. 
I  cannot  help  thinking  that  if  only  she  had  now  shown 


264     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


some  spirit,  and  had  been  able  to  substitute  energy  for 
sweetness  in  the  movements  of  her  mind,  the  history  of 
the  period  would  have  been  entirely  altered. 

It  must  surely  be  clear  to  the  impartial  reader  that 
Antony's  change  of  attitude  was  due  more  to  political 
than  to  romantic  considerations.*  We  have  heard  so 
much  of  the  arts  of  seduction  practised  by  Cleopatra  that 
it  is  not  easy  at  first  to  rid  the  mind  of  the  traditional 
interpretation  of  this  reunion ;  and  we  are,  at  the  outset, 
inclined  to  accept  Plutarch's  definition  of  the  affair  when 
he  tells  us  that  "  Antony's  passion  for  Cleopatra,  which 
better  thoughts  had  seemed  to  have  lulled  and  charmed 
into  oblivion,  now  gathered  strength  again,  and  broke 
into  flame ;  and  like  Plato's  restive  and  rebellious  horse 
of  the  human  soul,  flinging  off  all  good  and  wholesome 
counsel,  and  fairly  breaking  loose,  he  sent  Fonteius 
Capito  to  bring  her  into  Syria."  But  it  is  to  be  re- 
membered that  this  "  passion  "  for  the  Queen  had  not 
been  strong  enough  to  hold  him  from  marrying  Octavia 
a  few  months  after  he  had  left  the  arms  of  Cleopatra ; 
and  now  three  and  a  half  years  had  passed  since  he 
had  seen  the  Queen, — a  period  which,  to  a  memory  so 
short  as  Antony's,  constituted  a  very  complete  hiatus 
in  this  particular  love-story.  So  slight,  indeed,  was  his 
affection  for  her  at  this  time  that,  in  speaking  of  the 
twins  with  which  she  had  presented  him,  he  made  the 
famous  remark  already  quoted,  that  he  had  no  intention 
of  confining  his  hopes  of  progeny  to  any  one  woman, 
but,  like  his  ancestor  Hercules,  he  hoped  to  let  nature 
take  her  will  with  him,  the  best  way  of  circulating  noble 
blood  through  the  world  being  thus  personally  to  beget 
in  every  country  a  new  line  of  kings.    Antony  doubtless 

'  Prof.  Ferrero  and  others  have  already  pointed  this  out. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  265 


looked  forward  with  youthful  excitement  to  a  renewal  of 
his  relations  with  the  Queen,  and,  to  some  extent,  it  may 
be  true  that  he  now  joyously  broke  loose  from  the  gentle, 
and,  for  that  reason,  galling,  bonds  of  domesticity  ;  but 
actually  he  purposed,  for  political  reasons,  to  make  a 
definite  alliance  with  Cleopatra,  and  it  is  unreasonable 
to  suppose  that  any  flames  of  ungoverned  passion  burnt 
within  his  jolly  heart  at  this  time. 

On  Cleopatra's  side  the  case  was  somewhat  different. 
The  stress  of  bitter  experience  had  knocked  out  of  her 
all  that  harum-scarum  attitude  towards  life  which  had 
been  her  marked  characteristic  in  earlier  years ;  and  she 
was  no  longer  able  to  play  with  her  fortune  nor  to  romp 
through  her  days  as  formerly  she  had  done.  Antony, 
whom  in  her  way  she  had  loved,  had  cruelly  deserted  her, 
and  now  was  asking  for  a  renewal  of  her  favours.  Could 
she  believe  (for  no  doubt  such  was  his  excuse)  that  his 
long  absence  from  her  and  his  marriage  to  another 
woman  were  purely  political  manoeuvres  which  had  in  no 
way  interfered  with  the  continuity  of  his  love  for  her  ? 
Could  she  put  her  trust  in  him  this  second  time  ?  Could 
she,  on  the  other  hand,  manage  her  complicated  affairs  with- 
out him  ?  Evidently  he  was  now  omnipotent  in  the  East; 
Parthia  was  likely  to  go  down  before  him  ;  and  Octavian's 
sombre  figure  was  already  almost  entirely  eclipsed  by 
this  new  Dionysos,  save  only  in  little  Italy  itself.  Would 
there  be  any  hope  of  enlarging  her  dominions,  or  even  of 
retaining  those  she  already  possessed,  without  his  assist- 
ance ?  Such  questions  could  only  have  one  solution. 
She  must  come  to  an  absolutely  definite  understanding 
with  Antony,  and  must  make  a  binding  agreement  with 
him.  In  a  word,  if  there  was  to  be  any  renewal  of  their 
relationship,  he  must  marry  her.     There  must  be  no 


266     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


more  diplomatic  manoeuvring,  which,  to  her,  meant 
desertion,  misery,  and  painful  anxiety.  He  must  become 
the  open  enemy  of  Octavian,  and,  with  her  help,  must  aim 
at  the  conquest  both  of  the  limitless  East  and  of  the 
entire  West.  He  must  act  in  all  things  as  the  successor 
of  the  divine  Julius  Caesar,  and  the  heir  to  their  joint 
power  must  be  Caesar's  son,  the  little  Caesarion,  now  a 
growing  boy  of  over  ten  years  of  age. 

With  this  determination  fixed  in  her  mind  she  ac- 
cepted the  invitation  presented  to  her  by  Fonteius  Capito, 
and  set  sail  for  Syria.  A  few  weeks  later,  towards  the 
end  of  the  year  B.C.  37,  she  met  Antony  in  the  city  of 
Antioch ;  and  at  once  she  set  herself  to  the  execution 
of  her  decision.  History  does  not  tell  us  what  passed 
between  them  at  their  first  interviews ;  but  it  may  be 
supposed  that  Antony  excused  his  previous  conduct  on 
political  grounds,  and  made  it  clear  to  the  Queen  that 
he  now  desired  a  definite  and  lasting  alliance  with  her ; 
while  Cleopatra,  on  her  part,  intimated  her  willingness 
to  unite  herself  with  him,  provided  that  the  contract  was 
made  legal  and  binding  on  both  sides. 

The  fact  that  she  obtained  Antony's  consent  to  an 
agreement  which  was  in  every  way  to  her  advantage,  not 
only  shows  what  a  high  value  was  set  by  Antony  upon 
Egypt's  friendship  at  this  time,  but  it  also  proves  how 
great  were  her  powers  of  persuasion.  It  must  be  re- 
membered that  Cleopatra  had  been  for  over  three  years 
a  wronged  woman,  deserted  by  her  lover,  despairing  of 
ever  obtaining  the  recognition  of  her  son's  claims  upon 
Rome,  and  almost  hopeless  even  of  retaining  the  inde- 
pendence of  Egypt.  Now  she  had  the  pluck  to  demand 
from  him  all  manner  of  increased  rights  and  privileges 
and  the  confirmation  of  all  her  dynastic  hopes ;  and,  to 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  267 


her  great  joy,  Antony  was  willing  to  accede  to  her  wishes. 
I  have  already  shown  that  he  did  not  really  love  her  with 
a  passion  so  deep  that  his  sober  judgment  was  obscured 
thereby,  and  the  agreement  is  therefore  to  be  attributed 
more  to  the  Queen's  shrewd  bargaining,  and  to  her  very 
understandable  anxiety  not  to  be  duped  once  more  by  her 
fickle  lover.  She  must  have  worked  upon  Antony's  feel- 
ings by  telling  him  of  her  genuine  distress ;  and  at  the 
same  time  she  must  warmly  have  confirmed  his  estimate 
of  Egypt's  importance  to  him  at  this  juncture. 

The  terms  of  the  agreement  appear  to  me  to  have 
been  as  follows  : — 

Firstly,  it  seems  to  have  been  arranged  that  a  legal 
marriage  should  be  contracted  between  them  according 
to  Egyptian  custom.  We  have  already  seen  how,  many 
years  previously,  Julius  Caesar  had  countenanced  a  law 
designed  to  legalise  his  proposed  marriage  with  Cleopatra, 
by  the  terms  of  which  he  would  have  been  able  to  marry 
more  than  one  wife ;  ^  and  Antony  now  seems  to  have 
based  his  attitude  upon  a  somewhat  similar  under- 
standing. The  marriage  would  not  be  announced  to  the 
Senate  in  Rome,  since  he  intended  no  longer  to  regard 
himself  as  subject  to  the  old  Roman  Law  in  these 
matters;  but  in  Egypt  it  would  be  accepted  as  a  legal 
and  terrestrial  confirmation  of  the  so-called  celestial 
union  of  B.C.  40. 

Secondly,  it  was  agreed  that  Antony  should  not  assume 
the  title  of  King  of  Egypt,  but  should  call  himself 
Autocrator  —  i.e.,  "absolute  ruler,"  of  the  entire  East. 
The  word  avToxpaTwp  was  a  fair  Greek  equivalent  of  the 
Roman  Imperator,  a  title  which,  it  will  be  remembered, 
was  made  hereditary  in  Julius  Caesar's  behalf,  and  which 

^  Page  1 60. 


268     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


was  probably  intended  by  him  to  obtain  its  subsequent 
significance  of  "  Emperor."  Antony  would  not  adopt 
the  title  of  /Sao-iXeu?  or  rex,  which  was  always  objection- 
able to  Roman  ears ;  nor  was  the  word  Imperator  quite 
distinguished  enough,  since  it  was  held  by  all  com- 
manders-in-chief of  Roman  armies.  But  the  title 
Autocrator  was  significant  of  omnipotence;  and  it  is  to 
be  noted  that  from  this  time  onwards  every  "  Pharaoh  " 
of  Egypt  was  called  by  that  name,  which  in  hieroglyphs 
reads  Aufk'r'd'r.  Antony  also  retained  for  the  time 
being  his  title  of  Triumvir. 

Thirdly,  Antony  probably  promised  to  regard  Caesarion, 
the  son  of  Cleopatra  and  Julius  Caesar,  as  the  rightful 
heir  to  the  throne ;  ^  and  he  agreed  to  give  his  own 
children  by  the  Queen  the  minor  kingdoms  within  their 
empire. 

Fourthly,  Antony  appears  to  have  promised  to  increase 
the  extent  of  Egyptian  power  to  that  which  existed 
fourteen  hundred  years  previously,  in  the  days  of  the 
mighty  Pharaohs  of  the  Eighteenth  dynasty.  He  there- 
fore gave  to  the  Queen  Sinai ;  Arabia,  including  probably 
the  rock-city  of  Petra ;  the  east  coast  of  the  Dead  Sea ; 
part  of  the  valley  of  the  Jordan  and  the  City  of  Jericho ; 
perhaps  a  portion  of  Samaria  and  Galilee  ;  the  Phoenician 
coast,  with  the  exception  of  the  free  cities  of  Tyre  and 
Sidon  ;  the  Lebanon  ;  probably  the  north  coast  of  Syria ; 
part  of  Cilicia,  perhaps  including  Tarsus ;  the  island  of 
Cyprus ;  and  a  part  of  Crete.  The  Kingdom  of  Judea, 
ruled  by  Herod,  was  thus  enclosed  within  Cleopatra's 
dominions ;  but  the  deduction  of  this  valuable  land 
from  the  Egyptian  sphere  was  compensated  for  by  the 
addition  of  the  Cilician  territory,  which  had  always  lain 
>  See  pp.  196,  197,  291,  305. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  269 


beyond  Egypt's  frontiers,  even  in  the  days  of  the  great 
Pharaohs. 

Lastly,  in  return  for  these  gifts  Cleopatra  must  have 
undertaken  to  place  all  the  financial  and  military 
resources  of  Egypt  at  Antony's  disposal  whenever  he 
should  need  them. 

As  soon  as  this  agreement  was  made  I  think  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  Cleopatra  and  Antony  were 
quietly  married ;  ^  and  in  celebration  of  the  event  coins 
were  struck,  showing  their  two  heads,  and  inscribed 
with  both  their  names,  she  being  called  Queen  and  he 
Autocrator.  In  honour  of  the  occasion,  moreover, 
Cleopatra  began  a  new  dating  of  the  years  of  her  reign ; 
and  on  a  coin  minted  six  years  later,  the  heads  of 
Antony  and  the  Queen  are  shown  with  the  inscription, 
"  In  the  reign  of  Queen  Cleopatra,  in  the  21st,  which 
is  also  the  6th,  year  of  the  goddess."  It  will  be  re- 
membered that  Cleopatra  came  to  the  throne  in  the 
summer  of  B.C.  51,  and  therefore  the  21st  year  of  her 
reign  would  begin  after  the  summer  of  b.c.  31,  which 
period  would  also  be  the  close  of  the  6th  year  dating 
from  this  alliance  at  Antioch  at  the  end  of  B.C.  37.  Thus 
these  coins  must  have  been  struck  in  the  autumn  of 
B.C.  31,  at  which  time  the  beginning  of  the  21st  year 
of  Cleopatra's  reign  as  Queen  of  Egypt  coincided  with 
the  end  of  the  6th  year  of  her  reign  with  Antony.  There 
are,  of  course,  many  arguments  to  be  advanced  against 
the  theory  that  she  was  now  definitely  married ;  but  in 
view  of  the  facts  that  their  two  heads  now  appear  on 
the  coins,  that  Antony  now  settled  upon  her  this  vast 
estate,  that  she  began  a  new  dating  to  her  reign,  that 

'  The  suggestion  that  an  actual  marriage  took  place  was  first  made  by 
Letronne,  was  confirmed  by  Kromayer,  and  was  accepted  by  Ferrero. 


270     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Antony  henceforth  lived  with  her,  and  that,  as  we  know 
from  his  letter  to  Octavian,^  he  spoke  of  her  afterwards 
as  his  wife,  I  do  not  think  that  there  is  any  good  reason 
for  postponing  the  wedding  until  a  later  period. 

The  winter  was  spent  quietly  at  Antioch,  Antony  being 
busily  engaged  in  preparations  for  his  new  Parthian 
campaign  which  was  to  bring  him,  he  hoped,  such 
enormous  prestige  and  popularity  in  the  Roman  world. 
The  city  was  the  metropolis  of  Syria,  and  at  this  time 
must  already  have  been  recognised  as  the  third  city 
of  the  world,  ranking  immediately  below  Rome  and 
Alexandria.  The  residential  quarter,  called  Daphnae, 
was  covered  with  thick  groves  of  laurels  and  cypresses 
for  ten  miles  around,  and  a  thousand  little  streams  ran 
down  from  the  hills  and  passed  under  the  shade  of  the 
trees  where,  even  in  the  height  of  summer,  it  was  always 
cool.  The  city  was  famous  for  its  art  and  learning,  and 
was  a  centre  eminently  suited  to  Cleopatra's  tastes. 
The  months  passed  by  without  much  event.  The  Queen 
is  said  to  have  tried  to  persuade  Antony  to  dethrone 
Herod  and  to  add  Judea  to  her  new  dominions,  but  this 
he  would  not  do,  and  he  begged  her  not  to  meddle  with 
Herod's  affairs,  a  correction  which  she  at  once  accepted, 
thereafter  acting  with  great  cordiality  to  the  Jewish 
King. 

In  March  B.C.  26,  Antony  set  out  for  the  war,  Cleopatra 
accompanying  him  as  far  as  Zeugma,  a  town  on  the 
Euphrates,  near  the  Armenian  frontier,  a  march  of  about 
150  miles  from  Antioch.  It  is  probable  that  she  wished 
to  go  through  the  whole  campaign  by  his  side,  for,  at  a 
later  date,  we  find  her  again  attempting  to  remain  by 
him  under  similar  circumstances;  but  at  Zeugma  a  dis- 

1  Page  29S. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  271 


covery  seems  to  have  been  made  in  regard  to  her 
condition  which  necessitated  her  going  back  to  Egypt, 
there  to  await  his  triumphant  return.  In  spite  of  the 
anxieties  and  disappointments  of  her  life  the  Queen 
had  retained  her  energy  and  pluck  in  a  marked  degree, 
and  she  was  now  no  less  hardy  and  daring  than  she  had 
been  in  the  days  when  Julius  Caesar  had  found  her 
invading  Egypt  at  the  head  of  her  Syrian  army.  She 
enjoyed  the  open  life  of  a  campaign,  and  she  took 
pleasure  in  the  dangers  which  had  to  be  faced.  An 
ancient  writer,  Florus,  has  described  her,  as  we  have 
already  noticed,  as  being  "  free  from  all  womanly  fear," 
and  this  attempt  to  go  to  the  wars  with  her  husband  is 
an  indication  that  the  audacity  and  dash  so  often  notice- 
able in  her  actions  had  not  been  impaired  by  her 
misfortunes.  She  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
altogether  in  favour  of  the  expedition,  for  it  seemed  a 
risky  undertaking,  and  one  which  would  cost  her  a 
great  deal  of  money,  but  the  adventure  of  it  appealed 
to  her,  and  added  that  quality  of  excitement  to  her  days 
which  seems  to  have  been  so  necessary  to  her  existence. 
Antony,  however,  fond  as  he  was  of  her,  could  not  have 
appreciated  the  honour  of  her  company  at  such  a  time ; 
and  he  must  have  been  not  a  little  relieved  when  he 
saw  her  retreating  cavalcade  disappear  along  the  road 
to  Antioch. 

From  Antioch  Cleopatra  made  her  way  up  the  valley 
of  the  Orontes  to  Apamea,  whence  she  travelled  past 
Arethusa  and  Emesa  to  the  Anti- Lebanon,  and  so  to 
Damascus.  From  here  she  seems  to  have  crossed  to 
the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  thence  along  the  river  Jordan 
to  Jericho.  Hereabouts  she  was  met  by  the  handsome 
and  adventurous  Herod,  who  came  to  her  in  order  that 


272     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


they  might  arrive  at  some  agreement  in  regard  to  the 
portions  of  Judea  which  Antony  had  given  to  her; 
and,  after  some  bargaining,  it  was  finally  decided  that 
Herod  should  rent  these  territories  from  her  for  a  certain 
sum  of  money.  Jericho's  tropical  climate  produced 
great  abundance  of  palms,  henna,  sometimes  known  as 
camphire,  myrobalan  or  zukkum,  and  balsam,  the  "  balm 
of  Gilead,"  so  much  prized  as  perfume  and  for  medicinal 
purposes.  Josephus  speaks  of  Jericho  as  a  "divine 
region,"  and  strategically  it  was  the  key  of  Palestine. 
It  may  be  understood,  therefore,  how  annoying  it  must 
have  been  to  Herod  to  be  dispossessed  of  this  jewel  of 
his  crown ;  and  it  is  said  that,  after  he  had  rented  it 
from  Cleopatra,  it  became  his  favourite  place  of  resi- 
dence. The  transaction  being  settled,  the  Queen  seems 
to  have  continued  her  journey  to  Egypt,  at  the  Jewish 
King's  invitation,  by  way  of  Jerusalem  and  Gaza — that 
is  to  say,  across  the  Kingdom  of  Judea;  but  no  sooner 
had  she  set  her  foot  on  Jewish  territory  than  Herod 
conceived  the  plan  of  seizing  her  and  putting  her  to 
death.  The  road  from  Jericho  to  Jerusalem  ascends 
the  steep,  wild  mountain  -  side,  and  zigzags  upwards 
through  rugged  and  bare  scenery.  It  would  have  been 
a  simple  matter  to  ambush  the  Queen  in  one  of  the 
desolate  ravines  through  which  she  had  to  pass,  and 
the  blame  might  be  placed  with  the  brigands  who  infested 
these  regions.  He  pointed  out  to  his  advisers,  as  Josephus 
tells  us,  that  Cleopatra  by  reason  of  her  enormous  influ- 
ence upon  the  affairs  of  Rome  had  become  a  menace  to 
all  minor  sovereigns ;  and  now  that  he  had  her  in  his 
power  he  could,  with  the  greatest  ease,  rid  the  world 
of  a  woman  who  had  become  irksome  to  them  all,  and 
thereby  deliver  them  from  a  very  multitude  of  evils  and 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  273 


misfortunes.  He  told  them  that  Cleopatra  was  actually 
turning  her  beautiful  eyes  upon  himself,  and  he  doubted 
not  but  that  she  would  make  an  attempt  upon  his  virtue 
before  he  had  got  her  across  his  southern  frontier.  He 
argued  that  Antony  would  in  the  long-run  come  to 
thank  him  for  her  murder ;  for  it  was  apparent  that  she 
would  never  be  a  faithful  friend  to  him,  but  would 
desert  him  at  the  moment  when  he  should  most  stand 
in  need  of  her  fidelity.  The  councillors,  however,  were 
appalled  at  the  King's  proposal,  and  implored  him  not 
to  put  it  into  execution.  "They  laid  hard  at  him," 
says  the  naif  Josephus,  "  and  begged  him  to  undertake 
nothing  rashly ;  for  that  Antony  would  never  bear  it, 
no,  not  though  any  one  should  lay  evidently  before  his 
eyes  that  it  was  for  his  own  advantage.  This  woman 
was  of  the  supremest  dignity  of  any  of  her  sex  at  that 
time  in  the  world ;  and  such  an  undertaking  would 
appear  to  deserve  condemnation  on  account  of  the  in- 
solence Herod  must  take  upon  himself  in  doing  it." 

The  Jewish  King,  therefore,  giving  up  his  treacherous 
scheme,  politely  escorted  Cleopatra  to  the  frontier  for- 
tress of  Pelusium,  and  thus  she  came  unscathed  to 
Alexandria,  where  she  settled  down  to  await  the  birth  of 
her  fourth  child.  It  is  perhaps  worth  noting  that  she  is 
said  to  have  brought  back  to  Egypt  from  Jericho  many 
cuttings  of  the  balsam  shrubs,  and  planted  them  at 
Heliopolis,  near  the  modern  Cairo.^  The  Queen's  mind 
must  now  have  been  full  of  optimism.  Antony  had 
collected  an  enormous  army,  and  already,  she  supposed, 
he  must  have  penetrated  far  into  Parthia.  In  spite  of  her 
previous  fears,  she  now  expected  that  he  would  return  to 
her  covered  with  glory,  having  opened  the  road  through 

'  Brocardus  :  Descriptio  Terrae  Sanctae,  xiii. 
S 


274     LIFE  AND  TLMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Persia  to  India  and  the  fabulous  East.  Rome  would  hail 
him  as  their  hero  and  idol,  and  the  unpopular  Octavian 
would  sink  into  insignificance.  Then  he  would  claim  for 
himself  and  for  her  the  throne  of  the  West  as  well  as  that 
of  the  Orient,  and  at  last  her  little  son  Caesarion,  as  their 
heir,  would  come  into  his  own. 

With  such  hopes  as  these  to  support  her,  Cleopatra 
passed  through  her  time  of  waiting;  and  in  the  late 
autumn  she  gave  birth  to  a  boy,  whom  she  named 
Ptolemy,  according  to  the  custom  of  her  house.  But  ere 
she  had  yet  fully  recovered  her  strength  she  received 
despatches  from  Antony,  breaking  to  her  the  appalling 
news  that  his  campaign  had  been  a  disastrous  failure, 
and  that  he  had  reached  northern  Syria  with  only  a 
remnant  of  his  grand  army,  clad  in  rags,  emaciated  by 
hunger  and  illness,  and  totally  lacking  in  funds.  He 
implored  her  to  come  to  his  aid,  and  to  bring  him  money 
wherewith  to  pay  his  disheartened  soldiers,  and  he  told 
her  that  he  would  await  her  coming  upon  the  Syrian 
coast  somewhere  between  Sidon  and  Berytus. 

Once  more  the  unfortunate  Queen's  hopes  were  dashed 
to  the  ground;  but  pluckily  rising  to  the  occasion,  she 
collected  money,  clothes,  and  munitions  of  war,  and  set 
out  with  all  possible  speed  to  her  husband's  relief. 

The  history  of  the  disaster  is  soon  told.  From  Zeugma 
Antony  had  marched  to  the  plateau  of  Erzeroum,  where 
he  had  reviewed  his  enormous  army,  consisting  of  60,000 
Roman  foot  (including  Spaniards  and  Gauls),  10,000 
Roman  horse,  and  some  30,000  troops  of  other  nation- 
alities, including  13,000  horse  and  foot  supplied  by 
Artavasdes,  King  of  Armenia,  and  a  strong  force  provided 
by  King  Polemo  of  Pontus.  An  immense  number  of 
heavy  engines  of  war  had  been  collected  ;  and  these  were 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  275 


despatched  towards  Media  along  the  valley  of  the  Araxes, 
together  with  the  contingents  from  Armenia  and  Pontus 
and  two  Roman  legions.  Antony  himself,  with  the  main 
army,  marched  by  a  more  direct  route  across  northern 
Assyria  into  Media,  being  impatient  to  attack  the  enemy. 
The  news  of  his  approach  in  such  force,  says  Plutarch, 
not  only  alarmed  the  Parthians  but  filled  North  India 
with  fear,  and,  indeed,  made  all  Asia  shake.  It  was 
generally  supposed  that  he  would  march  in  triumph 
through  Persia ;  and  there  must  have  been  considerable 
talk  as  to  whether  he  would  carry  his  arms,  like  Alexander 
the  Great,  into  India,  where  Cleopatra's  ships,  coming 
across  the  high  sea  trade-route  from  Egypt,  would  meet 
him  with  money  and  supplies.  Towards  the  end  of 
August,  Antony  reached  the  city  of  Phraaspa,  the  capital 
of  Media-Atropatene,  and  there  he  awaited  the  arrival  of 
his  siege-train  and  its  accompanying  contingent.  He 
had  expected  that  the  city  would  speedily  surrender,  but 
in  this  he  was  mistaken ;  and,  ere  he  had  settled  down  to 
the  business  of  a  protracted  siege,  he  received  the  news 
that  his  second  army  had  been  attacked  and  defeated, 
that  his  entire  siege-train  had  been  captured,  that  the 
King  of  Armenia  had  fled  with  the  remnant  of  his  forces 
back  to  his  own  country,  and  that  the  King  of  Pontus 
had  been  taken  prisoner.  In  spite  of  this  crushing  loss, 
however,  Antony  bravely  determined  to  continue  the 
siege ;  but  soon  the  arrival  of  the  Parthian  army,  fresh 
from  its  victory,  began  to  cause  him  great  discomfort, 
and  his  lines  were  constantly  harassed  from  the  outside 
by  bodies  of  the  famous  Parthian  cavalry,  though  not 
once  did  the  enemy  allow  a  general  battle  to  take  place. 
At  last,  in  October,  he  was  obliged  to  open  negotiations 
with  the  enemy ;  for,  in  view  of  the  general  lack  of  pro- 


276     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


visions,  and  the  deep  despondency  of  the  troops,  the 
approach  of  winter  could  not  be  contemplated  without 
the  utmost  dread.  He  therefore  sent  a  message  to  the 
Parthian  King  stating  that  if  the  prisoners  captured  from 
Crassus  were  handed  over,  together  with  the  lost  eagles, 
he  would  raise  the  siege  and  depart.  The  enemy  refused 
these  terms,  but  declared  that  if  Antony  would  retire,  his 
retreat  would  not  be  molested ;  and  to  this  the  Romans 
agreed.  The  Parthians,  however,  did  not  keep  their 
word ;  and  as  the  weary  legionaries  crossed  the  snow- 
covered  mountains  they  were  attacked  again  and  again 
by  the  fierce  tribesmen,  who  ambushed  them  at  every  pass, 
and  followed  in  their  rear  to  cut  off  stragglers.  The 
intense  cold,  the  lack  of  food,  and  the  extreme  weariness 
of  the  troops,  caused  the  number  of  these  stragglers  to  be 
very  great ;  and  besides  the  thousands  of  men  who  were 
thus  cut  off  or  killed  in  the  daily  fighting,  a  great  number 
perished  from  exposure  and  want  of  food.  At  one  period 
so  great  was  the  scarcity  of  provisions  that  a  loaf  of  bread 
was  worth  its  weight  in  silver ;  and  it  was  at  this  time 
that  large  numbers  of  men,  having  devoured  a  certain 
root  which  seemed  to  be  edible,  went  mad  and  died. 
"  He  that  had  eaten  of  this  root,"  says  Plutarch,  "  remem- 
bered nothing  in  the  world,  and  employed  himself  only  in 
moving  great  stones  from  one  place  to  another,  which  he 
did  with  as  much  earnestness  and  industry  as  if  it  had 
been  a  business  of  the  greatest  consequence ;  and  thus 
through  all  the  camp  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  but 
men  grubbing  upon  the  ground  at  stones,  which  they 
carried  from  place  to  place,  until  in  the  end  they  vomited 
and  died."  This  account,  though  of  course  exaggerated 
and  confused,  gives  a  vivid  picture  of  the  distressed 
legionaries,  some  dying  of  this  poison,  some  going  mad, 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  277 


some  perishing  from  exposure  and  vainly  endeavouring  to 
build  themselves  a  shelter  from  the  biting  wind. 

All  through  the  long  and  terrible  march  Antony  behaved 
with  consummate  bravery  and  endurance.  He  shared 
every  hardship  with  his  men,  and  when  the  camp  was 
pitched  at  night  he  went  from  tent  to  tent,  talking  to  the 
legionaries,  and  cheering  them  with  encouraging  words. 
His  sympathy  and  concern  for  the  wounded  was  that  of 
the  tenderest  woman ;  and  he  would  throw  himself  down 
beside  sufferers  and  burst  into  uncontrolled  tears.  The 
men  adored  him ;  and  even  those  who  were  at  the  point 
of  death,  arousing  themselves  in  his  presence,  called  him 
by  every  respectful  and  endearing  name.  "They  seized 
his  hands,"  says  Plutarch,  "with  joyful  faces,  bidding 
him  go  and  see  to  himself  and  not  be  concerned  about 
them  ;  calling  him  their  Emperor  and  their  General,  and 
saying  that  if  only  he  were  well  they  were  safe."  Many 
times  Antony  was  heard  to  exclaim,  "  O,  the  ten  thou- 
sand ! "  as  though  in  admiration  for  Xenophon's  famous 
retreat,  which  was  even  more  arduous  than  his  own.  On 
one  occasion  so  serious  was  the  situation  that  he  made 
one  of  his  slaves,  named  Rhamnus,  take  an  oath  that  in 
the  event  of  a  general  massacre  he  would  run  his  sword 
through  his  body,  and  cut  off  his  head,  in  order  that  he 
might  neither  be  captured  alive  nor  be  recognised  when 
dead. 

At  last,  after  twenty-seven  terrible  days,  during  which 
they  had  beaten  off  the  Parthians  no  less  than  eighteen 
times,  they  crossed  the  Araxes  and  brought  the  eagles 
safely  into  Armenia.  Here,  making  a  review  of  the  army, 
Antony  found  that  he  had  lost  20,000  foot  and  4000  horse, 
the  majority  of  which  had  died  of  exposure  and  illness. 
Their  troubles,  however,  were  by  no  means  at  an  end ; 


278     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


for  although  the  enemy  had  now  been  left  behind,  the 
snows  of  winter  had  still  to  be  faced,  and  the  march 
through  Armenia  into  Syria  was  fraught  with  difficulties. 
By  the  time  that  the  coast  was  reached  eight  thousand 
more  men  had  perished ;  and  the  army  which  finally 
went  into  winter  quarters  at  a  place  known  as  the  White 
Village,  between  Sidon  and  Berytus,  was  but  the  tattered 
remnant  of  the  great  host  which  had  set  out  so  bravely  in 
the  previous  spring.  Yet  it  may  be  said  that  had  not 
Antony  proved  himself  so  dauntless  a  leader,  not  one 
man  would  have  escaped  from  those  terrible  mountains, 
but  all  would  have  shared  the  doom  of  Crassus  and  his 
ill-fated  expedition. 

At  the  White  Village  Antony  eagerly  awaited  the 
coming  of  Cleopatra ;  yet  so  ashamed  was  he  at  his 
failure,  and  so  unhappy  at  the  thought  of  her  reproaches 
for  his  ill-success,  that  he  turned  in  despair  to  the  false 
comfort  of  the  wine-jar,  and  daily  drank  himself  into  a 
state  of  oblivious  intoxication.  When  not  in  a  condition 
of  coma  he  was  nervous  and  restless.  He  could  not 
endure  the  tediousness  of  a  long  meal,  but  would  start  up 
from  table  and  run  down  to  the  sea-shore  to  scan  the 
horizon  for  a  sight  of  her  sails.  Both  he  and  his  officers 
were  haggard  and  unkempt,  his  men  being  clad  in  rags ; 
and  it  was  in  this  condition  that  Cleopatra  found  them 
when  at  last  her  fleet  sailed  into  the  bay,  bringing  cloth- 
ing, provisions,  and  money. 


279 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  PREPARATIONS  OF  CLEOPATRA  AND  ANTONY  FOR 
THE  OVERTHROW  OF  OCTAVIAN. 

When  Cleopatra  carried  Antony  back  to  Alexandria  to 
recuperate  after  his  exertions,  it  seems  to  me  that  she 
spoke  to  him  very  directly  in  regard  to  his  future  plans. 
She  seems  to  have  pointed  out  to  him  that  Roman  at- 
tempts to  conquer  Parthia  always  ended  in  failure,  and 
that  it  was  a  sheer  waste  of  money,  men,  and  time  to 
endeavour  to  obtain  possession  of  a  country  so  vast  and 
having  such  limitless  resources.  Wars  of  this  kind  ex- 
hausted their  funds  and  gave  them  nothing  in  return. 
Would  it  not  be  much  better,  therefore,  at  once  to  con- 
centrate all  their  energies  upon  the  overthrow  of  Octavian 
and  the  capture  of  Rome  ?  Antony  had  proved  his  popu- 
larity with  his  men  and  their  confidence  in  him  and  his 
powers  as  a  leader,  for  he  had  performed  with  ultimate 
success  that  most  difficult  feat  of  generalship — an  orderly 
retreat.  Surely,  therefore,  it  would  be  wise  to  expend 
no  further  portion  of  their  not  unlimited  means  upon 
their  eastern  schemes,  but  to  concentrate  their  full 
attention  first  upon  Italy.  The  Parthians,  after  all,  had 
been  turned  out  of  Armenia  and  Syria,  and  they  might 
now  be  left  severely  alone  within  their  own  country  until 


28o     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


that  day  when  Antony  would  march  against  them,  in 
accordance  with  the  prophecies  of  the  Sibylline  Books, 
as  King  of  Rome.  Cleopatra  had  never  favoured  the 
Parthian  expedition,  though  she  had  helped  to  finance 
it  as  being  part  of  Julius  Caesar's  original  design ;  and 
she  had  accepted  as  reasonable  the  argument  put  forward 
by  Antony,  that  if  successful  it  would  enhance  enormously 
his  prestige  and  ensure  his  acceptance  as  a  popular  hero 
in  Rome.  The  war,  however,  had  been  disastrous,  and 
it  would  be  better  now  to  abandon  the  whole  scheme  than 
to  risk  a  further  catastrophe.  Antony,  fagged  out  and 
suffering  from  the  effects  of  his  severe  drinking-bout, 
appears  to  have  acquiesced  in  these  arguments ;  and  it 
seems  that  he  arrived  in  Alexandria  with  the  intention 
of  recuperating  his  resources  for  a  year  or  two  in  view  of 
his  coming  quarrel  with  Octavian.  In  Syria  he  had 
received  news  of  the  events  which  had  occurred  in  Rome 
during  his  absence  at  the  wars.  Octavian  had  at  last 
defeated  Sextus  Pompeius,  who  had  fled  to  Mytilene ; 
and  Lepidus,  the  third  Triumvir,  had  retired  into  private 
life,  leaving  his  province  of  Africa  in  Octavian's  hands. 
His  rival,  therefore,  now  held  the  West  in  complete 
subjection,  and  it  was  not  unlikely  that  he  himself  would 
presently  pick  a  quarrel  with  Antony. 

The  comforts  of  the  Alexandrian  Palace,  and  the 
pleasures  of  Cleopatra's  brilliant  society,  must  have 
come  to  Antony  as  an  entrancing  change  after  the  rigours 
of  his  campaign ;  and  the  remainder  of  the  winter,  no 
doubt,  slipped  by  in  happy  ease.  The  stern  affairs  of 
life,  however,  seem  to  have  checked  any  repetition  of  the 
frivolities  of  his  earlier  stay  in  the  Egyptian  capital ;  and 
we  now  hear  nothing  of  the  Inimitable  Livers  or  of  their 
prodigious  entertainments.    Antony  wrote  a  long  letter 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  281 


to  Rome,  giving  a  more  or  less  glowing  account  of  the 
war,  and  stating  that  in  many  respects  it  had  been  very 
successful.  Early  in  the  new  year,  b.c.  35,  Sextus 
Pompeius  attempted  to  open  negotiations  with  the 
Egyptian  court ;  but  the  envoys  whom  he  sent  to 
Alexandria  failed  to  secure  any  favourable  response. 
Antony,  on  the  other  hand,  learnt  from  them  that 
Sextus  was  engaged  in  a  secret  correspondence  with 
the  Parthians,  and  was  attempting  to  corrupt  Domitius 
Ahenobarbus,  his  lieutenant  in  Asia.  Thereupon  he  and 
Cleopatra  determined  to  capture  this  buccaneering  son 
of  the  great  Pompey  and  to  put  him  to  death.  The  order 
was  carried  out  by  a  certain  Titius,  who  effected  the 
arrest  in  Phrygia;  and  Sextus  was  executed  in  Miletus 
shortly  afterwards.  This  action  was  likely  to  be  ex- 
tremely ill  received  in  Rome,  for  the  outlaw,  in  the 
manner  of  a  Robin  Hood,  had  always  been  immensely 
popular ;  and  for  this  reason  Antony  never  seems  to 
have  admitted  his  responsibility  for  it,  the  order  being 
generally  said  to  have  been  signed  by  his  lieutenant, 
Plancus. 

Shortly  after  this  the  whole  course  of  events  was  sud- 
denly altered  by  the  arrival  in  Alexandria  of  no  less 
a  personage  than  the  King  of  Pontus,  who,  it  will  be 
remembered,  had  been  captured  by  the  Parthians at 
the  outset  of  Antony's  late  campaign,  and  had  been  held 
prisoner  by  the  King  of  Media.  The  latter  now  sent  him 
to  Egypt  with  the  news  that  the  lately  allied  kingdoms 
of  Media  and  Parthia  had  come  to  blows ;  and  the  King 
of  Media  proposed  that  Antony  should  help  him  to  over- 
throw his  rival.  This  announcement  caused  the  greatest 
upheaval  in  Cleopatra's  palace.    Here  was  an  unexpected 

1  Page  275. 


282     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


opportunity  to  conquer  the  terrible  Parthians  with  com- 
parative ease ;  for  Media  had  always  been  their  powerful 
ally,  and  the  Roman  arms  had  come  to  grief  on  former 
occasions  in  Median  territory.  Cleopatra,  however,  fear- 
ing the  duplicity  of  these  eastern  monarchs,  and  having 
set  her  heart  on  the  immediate  overthrow  of  Octavian, 
whose  power  was  now  so  distinctly  on  the  increase,  tried 
to  dissuade  her  husband  from  this  second  campaign,  and 
begged  him  to  take  no  further  risks  in  that  direction. 
As  a  tentative  measure  Antony  sent  a  despatch  to 
Artavasdes,  the  King  of  Armenia,  who  had  deserted  him 
after  his  defeat  in  Media,  ordering  him  to  come  to 
Alexandria  without  delay,  presumably  to  discuss  the 
situation.  Artavasdes,  however,  showed  no  desire  to 
place  himself  in  the  hands  of  his  overlord  whom  he  had 
thus  betrayed,  and  preferred  to  seek  safety,  if  necessary, 
in  his  own  hills  or  to  throw  in  his  lot  with  the  Parthians. 

Antony  was  deaf  to  Cleopatra's  advice ;  and  at  length 
accepting  the  proposal  conveyed  by  the  King  of  Pontus, 
he  prepared  to  set  out  at  once  for  the  north-east.  There- 
upon Cleopatra  made  up  her  mind  to  accompany  him ; 
and  in  the  late  spring  they  set  out  together  for  Syria.  No 
sooner  had  they  arrived  in  that  country,  however,  than 
Antony  received  the  disconcerting  news  that  his  Roman 
wife  Octavia  was  on  her  way  to  join  him  once  more,  and 
proposed  to  meet  him  in  Greece.  It  appears  that  her 
brother  Octavian  had  chosen  this  means  of  bringing  his 
quarrel  with  Antony  to  an  issue  ;  for  if  she  were  not  well 
received  he  would  have  just  cause  for  denouncing  her 
errant  husband  as  a  deserter ;  and  in  order  to  show  how 
justly  he  himself  was  dealing  he  despatched  with  Octavia 
two  thousand  legionaries  and  some  munitions  of  war. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  legionaries  served  actually  as 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  283 


a  bodyguard  for  Octavia/  while  their  ultimate  presenta- 
tion to  Antony  was  to  be  regarded  partly  as  a  payment 
for  the  number  of  his  ships  which  had  been  destroyed  in 
Octavian's  war  against  Sextus,  and  partly  as  a  sort  of 
formal  present  from  one  autocrat  to  another.  Antony 
at  once  sent  a  letter  to  Octavia  telling  her  to  remain  at 
Athens,  as  he  was  going  to  Media ;  and  in  reply  to  this 
Octavia  despatched  a  family  friend,  named  Niger,  to  ask 
Antony  what  she  should  do  with  the  troops  and  supplies. 
Niger  had  the  hardihood  to  speak  openly  in  regard  to 
Octavia's  treatment,  and  to  praise  her  very  highly  for 
her  noble  and  quiet  bearing  in  her  great  distress ;  but 
Antony  was  in  no  mood  to  listen  to  him,  and  sent  him 
about  his  business  with  no  satisfactory  reply.  At  the 
same  time  he  appears  to  have  been  very  sorry  for 
Octavia,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that,  had  such  a 
thing  been  possible,  he  would  have  liked  to  see  her  for 
a  short  time,  if  only  to  save  her  from  the  added  insult  of 
his  present  attitude.  He  was  an  irresponsible  boy  in 
these  matters,  and  so  long  as  everybody  was  happy  he 
really  did  not  care  very  deeply  which  woman  he  lived 
with,  though  he  was  now,  it  would  seem,  extremely 
devoted  to  Cleopatra,  and  very  dependent  upon  her  lively 
society. 

The  Queen,  of  course,  was  considerably  alarmed  by 
this  new  development,  for  she  could  not  be  sure  whether 
Antony  would  stand  by  the  solemn  compact  he  had  made 
with  her  at  Antioch,  or  whether  he  would  once  more 
prove  a  fickle  friend.  She  realised  very  clearly  that  the 
insult  offered  to  Octavia  would  precipitate  the  war  be- 
tween East  and  West,  and  she  seems  to  have  felt  even 

*  Fulvia,  it  will  be  remembered  (page  255),  employed  3000  cavalry  as  a 
bodyguard  under  similar  circumstances. 


284     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


more  strongly  than  before  that  Antony  would  be  ill 
advised  at  this  critical  juncture  to  enter  into  any  further 
Parthian  complication.  To  her  mind  it  was  absolutely 
essential  that  she  should  carry  him  safely  back  to  Alex- 
andria, where  he  would  be,  on  the  one  hand,  well  out  of 
reach  of  Octavia,  and,  on  the  other,  far  removed  from  the 
temptation  of  pursuing  his  Oriental  schemes.  Antony, 
however,  was  as  eager  to  be  at  his  old  enemy  once  more 
as  a  beaten  boy  might  have  been  to  revenge  himself  upon 
his  rival ;  and  the  thought  of  giving  up  this  opportunity 
for  vengeance  in  order  to  prepare  for  an  immediate 
fight  with  Octavian  was  extremely  distasteful  to  him. 
Everything  now  seemed  to  be  favourable  for  a  successful 
invasion  of  Parthia.  Not  only  had  he  the  support  of  the 
King  of  Media,  but  the  fickle  King  of  Armenia  had 
thought  it  wise  at  the  last  moment  to  make  his  peace 
with  Antony,  and  the  new  agreement  was  to  be  sealed 
by  the  betrothal  of  his  daughter  to  Antony's  little  son 
Alexander  Helios.  Cleopatra,  however,  did  not  care  so 
much  about  the  conquest  of  Parthia  as  she  did  for  the 
overthrow  of  her  son's  rival,  who  seemed  to  have  usurped 
the  estate  which  ought  to  have  passed  from  the  great 
Cassar  to  Caesarion  and  herself ;  and  she  endeavoured 
now,  with  every  art  at  her  disposal,  to  prevent  Antony 
taking  any  further  risk  in  the  East,  and  to  urge  his  return 
to  Alexandria.  "  She  feigned  to  be  dying  of  love  for 
Antony,"  says  Plutarch,  "bringing  her  body  down  by 
slender  diet.  When  he  entered  the  room  she  fixed  her 
eyes  upon  him  in  adoration,  and  when  he  left  she  seemed 
to  languish  and  half  faint  away.  She  took  great  pains 
that  he  should  see  her  in  tears,  and,  as  soon  as  he 
noticed  it,  she  hastily  dried  them  and  turned  away,  as 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  285 


if  it  were  her  wish  that  he  should  know  nothing  of  it. 
Meanwhile  Cleopatra's  agents  were  not  slow  to  forward 
her  design,  upbraiding  Antony  with  his  unfeeling  hard- 
hearted nature  for  thus  letting  a  woman  perish  whose 
soul  depended  upon  him  and  him  alone.  Octavia,  it  was 
true,  was  his  wife ;  but  Cleopatra,  the  sovereign  queen 
of  many  nations,  had  been  contented  with  the  name  of 
his  mistress,^  and  if  she  were  bereaved  of  him  she  would 
not  survive  the  loss." 

In  this  manner  she  prevailed  upon  him  at  last  to  give 
up  the  proposed  war ;  nor  must  we  censure  her  too 
severely  for  her  piece  of  acting.  She  was  playing  a 
desperate  game  at  this  time.  She  had  persuaded  Antony 
to  turn  his  back  upon  Octavia  in  a  manner  which  could 
but  be  final ;  and  yet  immediately  after  this,  as  though 
oblivous  to  the  consequences  of  his  action,  he  was  eager 
to  go  off  to  Persia  at  a  time  when  Octavian  would  prob- 
ably attempt  to  declare  him  an  enemy  of  the  Roman 
people.  Of  course,  in  reality  the  Queen  was  no  more 
deeply  in  love  with  Antony  than  he  with  her ;  but  he 
was  absolutely  essential  to  the  realisation  of  her  hopes, 
and  the  necessity  of  a  speedy  trial  of  strength  with 
Octavian  became  daily  more  urgent.  For  this  he  must 
prepare  by  a  quiet  collecting  of  funds  and  munitions,  and 
all  other  projects  must  be  given  up. 

Very  reluctantly,  therefore,  Antony  returned  to  Alex- 
andria, and  there  he  spent  the  winter  of  B.C.  35-34  in 
soberly  governing  his  vast  possessions.  In  the  following 
spring,  however,  he  determined  to  secure  Armenia  and 

1  This  passage  is  sometimes  quoted  to  show  that  no  definite  marriage  had 
taken  place  at  Antioch  ;  but  it  only  indicates  that  the  marriage  to  Cleopatra, 
was  not  accepted  as  legal  in  Rome. 


286     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Media  for  his  own  ends;  and  when  he  transferred  his 
headquarters  to  Syria  for  the  summer  season  ^  he  again 
sent  word  to  King  Artavasdes  to  meet  him  in  order  to 
discuss  the  affairs  of  Parthia.  The  Armenian  king,  how- 
ever, seems  to  have  been  intriguing  against  Antony 
during  the  winter  ;  and  now  he  declined  to  place  himself 
in  Roman  hands  lest  he  might  suffer  the  consequence  of 
his  duplicity.  Thereupon  Antony  advanced  rapidly  into 
Armenia,  took  the  King  prisoner,  seized  his  treasure, 
pillaged  his  lands,  and  declared  the  country  to  be  hence- 
forth a  Roman  province.  The  loot  obtained  in  this  rapid 
campaign  was  very  great.  The  legionaries  seized  upon 
every  object  of  value  which  they  observed  :  and  they  even 
plundered  the  ancient  temple  of  Anaitis  in  Acilisene,  lay- 
ing hands  on  the  statue  of  the  goddess  which  was  made 
of  pure  gold,  and  pounding  it  into  pieces  for  purposes  of 
division. 

On  his  return  to  Syria  Antony  entered  into  negotiations 
with  the  King  of  Media,  the  result  of  which  was  that  the 
Median  Princess  lotapa  was  married  to  the  little  Alexander 
Helios,  whose  betrothal  to  the  King  of  Armenia's  daughter 
had,  of  course,  terminated  with  the  late  war.  As  we  shall 
presently  see,  it  is  probable  that  the  King  of  Media  had 
consented  to  make  the  youthful  couple  his  heirs  to  the 
throne  of  Media,  for  it  would  seem  that  he  had  no  son ; 
and  thus  Antony  is  seen  to  have  once  more  put  into 
practice  his  jesting  scheme  of  founding  royal  dynasties  of 

^  For  the  governing  of  his  Eastern  Empire  Antony  found  it  convenient  to 
make  his  headquarters  at  Alexandria  during  the  winter  and  S\Tia  during  the 
summer,  and  his  movements  to  and  fro  were  not  due  to  pressing  circumstances. 
The  whole  Court  moved  with  him,  just  as,  for  example,  at  the  present  day  the 
Viceregal  Court  of  India  moves  from  Calcutta  to  Simla.  Thutmosis  III.  and 
other  great  Pharaohs  of  Egypt  had  gone  over  to  Syria  in  the  summer  in  this 
manner. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  287 


his  own  flesh  and  blood  in  many  lands.  Antony  then 
returned  to  Alexandria,  well  satisfied  with  his  summer's 
work,  but  "with  his  thoughts,"  as  Plutarch  says,  "now 
taken  up  with  the  coming  civil  war."  Octavia  had  re- 
turned to  Rome,  and  had  made  no  secret  of  her  ill- 
treatment.  Her  brother,  therefore,  told  her  to  leave 
Antony's  house,  thus  to  show  her  resentment  against 
him ;  but  she  would  not  do  this,  nor  did  she  permit 
Octavian  to  make  war  upon  her  husband  on  her  account, 
for,  she  declared,  it  would  be  intolerable  to  have  it  said 
that  two  women,  herself  and  Cleopatra,  had  been  the 
cause  of  such  a  terrific  contest.  Nevertheless,  there  was 
little  chance  of  the  quarrel  being  patched  up ;  and 
Antony  must  have  realised  now  the  wisdom  of  Cleo- 
patra's objection  to  an  expensive  and  exhausting  cam- 
paign in  Parthia. 

On  his  return  to  Alexandria  in  the  autumn  of  B.C.  34, 
Antony  set  the  Roman  world  agog  by  celebrating  his 
triumph  over  Armenia  in  the  Egyptian  capital.  Never 
before  had  a  Roman  General  held  a  formal  Triumph  out- 
side Rome  ;  and  Antony's  action  appeared  to  be  a  definite 
proclamation  that  Alexandria  had  become  the  rival,  if  not 
the  successor,  of  Rome  as  the  capital  of  the  world.  It 
will  be  remembered  that  Julius  Caesar  had  talked  of 
removing  the  seat  of  government  from  Rome  to  Alex- 
andria; and  now  it  seemed  that  Antony  had  trans- 
ferred the  capital,  at  any  rate  of  the  Eastern  Empire, 
to  that  city,  and  was  regarding  it  as  his  home.  Alex- 
andria was  certainly  far  more  conveniently  situated  than 
Rome  for  the  government  of  the  world.  It  must  be  re- 
membered that  the  barbaric  western  countries — the 
unexplored  Germania,  the  newly  conquered  Gallia,  the 
insignificant  Britannia,  the  wild  Hispania,  and  others — 


288     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


were  not  of  nearly  such  value  as  were  the  civilised 
eastern  provinces ;  and  thus  Rome  stood  on  the  far 
western  outskirts  of  the  important  dominions  she 
governed.  From  Alexandria  a  march  of  600  or  800 
miles  brought  one  to  Antioch  or  to  Tarsus ;  whereas 
Rome  was  nearly  three  times  as  far  from  these  great 
centres.  The  southern  Peloponnesus  was,  by  way  of 
Crete,  considerably  nearer  to  Alexandria  than  it  was  to 
Rome  by  way  of  Brundisium.  Ephesus  and  other  cities 
of  Asia  Minor  could  be  reached  more  quickly  by  land  or 
sea  from  Egypt  than  they  could  from  Rome.  Rhodes, 
Lycia,  Bithynia,  Galatia,  Pamphylia,  Cilicia,  Cappadocia, 
Pontus,  Armenia,  Commagene,  Crete,  Cyprus,  and  many 
other  great  and  important  lands,  were  all  closer  to  Alex- 
andria than  to  Rome ;  while  Thrace  and  Byzantium,  by 
the  land  or  sea  route,  were  about  equidistant  from  either 
capital.  As  a  city,  too,  Alexandria  was  far  more  mag- 
nificent, more  cultivated,  more  healthy,  more  wealthy  in 
trade,  and  more  "  go-ahead "  than  Rome.  Thus  there 
was  really  very  good  ground  for  supposing  that  Antony, 
by  holding  his  Triumph  here,  was  proclaiming  a  definite 
transference  of  his  home  and  of  the  seat  of  government ; 
and  one  may  imagine  the  anxiety  which  it  caused  in 
Italy. 

The  Triumph  was  a  particularly  gorgeous  ceremony. 
At  the  head  of  the  procession  there  seems  to  have 
marched  a  body  of  Roman  legionaries,  whose  shields 
were  inscribed  with  the  large  C  which  is  said  to  have 
stood  for  "  Cleopatra,"  but  which,  with  equal  proba- 
bility, may  have  stood  for  "  Caesar,"  that  is  to  say,  for 
the  legitimate  Caesarian  cause.  Antony  rode  in  the 
customary  chariot  drawn  by  four  white  horses,  and 
before  him  walked  the  unfortunate  King  Artavasdes 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  289 


loaded  with  golden  chains,  together  with  his  queen  and 
their  sons.  Behind  the  chariot  walked  a  long  procession 
of  Armenian  captives,  and  after  these  came  the  usual  cars 
loaded  with  the  spoils  of  war.  Then  followed  a  number 
of  municipal  deputations  drawn  from  vassal  cities,  each 
carrying  a  golden  crown  or  chaplet  which  had  been  voted 
to  Antony  in  commemoration  of  his  conquest.  Roman 
legionaries,  Egyptian  troops,  and  several  eastern  con- 
tingents, brought  up  the  rear. 

The  procession  seems  to  have  set  out  in  the  sunshine 
of  the  morning  from  the  Royal  Palace  on  the  Lochias 
Promontory,  and  to  have  skirted  the  harbour  as  far  as 
the  temple  of  Neptune.  It  then  travelled  probably 
through  the  Forum,  past  the  stately  buildings  and 
luxuriant  gardens  of  the  Regia,  and  so  out  into  the 
Street  of  Canopus  at  about  the  point  where  the  great 
mound  of  the  Paneum  rose  up  against  the  blue  sky,  its 
ascending  pathway  packed  with  spectators.  Turning 
now  to  the  west,  the  procession  moved  slowly  along  this 
broad  paved  street,  the  colonnades  on  either  side  being 
massed  with  sightseers.  On  the  right-hand  side  the  walls 
of  the  Sema,  or  Royal  Mausoleum,  were  passed,  where 
lay  the  bones  of  Alexander  the  Great ;  and  on  the  left 
the  long  porticos  of  the  Gymnasium  and  the  Law  Courts 
formed  a  shaded  stand  for  hundreds  of  people  of  the 
upper  classes.  On  the  other  side  of  the  road  the  colon- 
nades and  windows  of  the  Museum  were  crowded,  I  sup- 
pose, with  the  professors  and  students  who  had  come 
with  their  families  to  witness  the  spectacle.  Some  dis- 
tance farther  along,  the  procession  turned  to  the  south, 
and  proceeded  along  the  broad  Street  of  Serapis,  at  the 
end  of  which,  on  high  ground,  stood  the  splendid  build- 
ing of  the  Serapeum.     Here  Cleopatra  and  her  court, 

T 


290     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


together  with  the  high  functionaries  of  Alexandria,  were 
gathered,  while  the  priests  and  priestesses  of  Serapis 
were  massed  on  either  side  of  the  street  and  upon  the 
broad  steps  which  led  up  to  the  porticos  of  the  temple. 
At  this  point  Antony  dismounted  from  his  chariot;  and 
probably  amidst  the  shouts  of  the  spectators  and  the 
shaking  of  hundreds  of  systra,  he  ascended  to  the  temple 
to  offer  the  prescribed  sacrifice  to  Serapis,  as  in  Rome  he 
would  have  done  to  Jupiter  Capitolinus.  This  accom- 
plished he  returned  to  the  court  in  front  of  the  sacred 
building,  where  a  platform  had  been  erected,  the  sides  of 
which  were  plated  with  silver.  On  this  platform,  upon  a 
throne  of  gold,  sat  Cleopatra,  clad  in  the  robes  of  Isis  or 
Venus ;  and  to  her  feet  Antony  now  led  the  royal  cap- 
tives of  Armenia,  all  hot  and  dusty  from  their  long  walk, 
and  dejected  by  the  continuous  booing  and  jeering  of 
the  crowds  through  which  they  had  passed.  Artavasdes 
was  no  barbarian  :  he  was  a  refined  and  cultured  man,  to 
whose  sensitive  nature  the  ordeal  must  have  been  most 
terrible.  He  was  something  of  a  poet,  and  in  his  time 
had  written  plays  and  tragedies  not  without  merit.  He 
was  now  told  to  abase  himself  before  Cleopatra,  and  to 
salute  her  as  a  goddess ;  but  this  he  totally  refused  to  do, 
and,  in  spite  of  some  rough  handling  by  his  guards,  he 
persisted  in  standing  upright  before  her  and  in  addressing 
her  simply  by  her  name.  In  Rome  it  was  customary  at 
the  conclusion  of  a  Triumph  to  put  to  death  the  royal 
captives  who  had  been  exhibited  in  the  procession  ;  and 
now  that  he  had  openly  insulted  the  Queen  of  Egypt  he 
could  not  have  expected  to  see  another  sun  rise.  Antony 
and  Cleopatra,  however,  appear  to  have  been  touched  at 
his  dignified  attitude;  and  neither  he  nor  his  family  were 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  291 


harmed.  Instead,  they  were  treated  with  some  show  of 
honour,^  and  thereafter  were  held  as  state  prisoners  in  the 
Egyptian  capital. 

The  Triumph  ended,  a  vast  banquet  was  given  to  all 
the  inhabitants  of  Alexandria ;  and  late  in  the  afternoon 
a  second  ceremony  was  held  in  the  grounds  of  the  Gym- 
nasium. Here  again  a  silver-covered  platform  had  been 
erected,  upon  which  two  large  and  four  smaller  thrones 
of  gold  had  been  set  up;  and,  when  the  company  was 
assembled,  Antony,  Cleopatra,  and  her  children  took 
their  seats  upon  them.  Certain  formalities  having  been 
observed,  Antony  arose  to  address  the  crowd ;  and,  after 
referring  no  doubt  to  his  victories,  he  proceeded  to  con- 
fer upon  the  Queen  and  her  offspring  a  series  of  startling 
honours.  He  appears  to  have  proclaimed  Cleopatra 
sovereign  of  Egypt,  and  of  the  dominions  which  he 
had  bestowed  upon  her  at  Antioch  nearly  three  years 
previously.  He  named  Caesarion,  the  son  of  Julius 
Caesar,  co  -  regent  with  his  mother,  and  gave  him  the 
mighty  title  of  King  of  Kings.'  Caesarion  was  now 
thirteen  and  a  half  years  of  age ;  and  since,  as  Suetonius 
remarks,  he  resembled  his  father,  the  great  Dictator,  in 
a  remarkable  manner,  Antony's  feelings  must  have  been 
strangely  complicated  as  he  now  conferred  upon  him 
these  vast  honours.  To  Alexander  Helios,  his  own  child, 
Antony  next  gave  the  kingdom  of  Armenia ;  the  king- 
dom of  Media,  presumably  after  the  death  of  the  reign- 
ing monarch,  whose  daughter  had  just  been  married  to 
him ;  and  ultimately  the  kingdom  of  Parthia,  provided 
that  it  had  been  conquered.    This  seems  to  have  been 

*  Velleius  Paterculus. 

^  I  here  adopt  the  statement  of  Dion,  and  not  that  of  Plutarch. 


292     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


arranged  by  treaty  with  the  King  of  Media  in  the  previous 
summer,^  the  agreement  probably  being  that,  on  the  death 
of  that  monarch,  Alexander  Helios  and  the  Median  heir- 
ess, lotapa,  should  ascend  the  amalgamated  thrones  of 
Armenia,  Media,  and  Parthia,  Antony  promising  in  return 
to  assist  in  the  conquest  of  the  last-named  country.  The 
boy  was  now  six  years  of  age,  and  his  chubby  little  figure 
had  been  dressed  for  the  occasion  in  Median  or  Armenian 
costume.  Upon  his  head  he  wore  the  high,  stiff  tiara 
of  these  countries,  from  the  back  of  which  depended  a 
flap  of  cloth  covering  his  neck ;  his  body  was  clothed 
in  a  sleeved  tunic,  over  which  was  worn  a  flowing  cloak, 
thrown  over  one  shoulder  and  hanging  in  graceful  folds 
at  the  back ;  and  his  legs  were  covered  by  the  long, 
loosely-fitting  trousers  worn  very  generally  throughout 
Persia.  To  Cleopatra  Selene,  Alexander's  twin -sister, 
Antony  gave  Cyrenaica,  Libya,  and  as  much  of  the  north- 
African  coast  as  was  in  his  gift ;  and  finally  he  proclaimed 
the  small  Ptolemy  King  of  Phoenicia,  northern  Syria,  and 
Cilicia.  This  little  boy,  only  two  years  of  age,  had  been 
dressed  up  for  the  occasion  in  Macedonian  costume,  and 
wore  the  national  mantle,  the  boots,  and  the  cap  encircled 
with  the  diadem,  in  the  manner  made  customary  by  the 
successors  of  Alexander.  At  the  end  of  this  surprising 
ceremony  the  children,  having  saluted  their  parents,  were 
each  surrounded  by  a  bodyguard  composed  of  men  be- 
longing to  the  nations  over  whom  they  were  to  rule ; 
and  at  last  all  returned  in  state  to  the  Palace  as  the 
sun  set  behind  the  Harbour  of  the  Happy  Return. 

In  celebration  of  the  occasion  coins  were  struck  bear- 
ing the  inscription  Cleopatrce  regincB  regwn  filiorum  regum 
— "Of  Cleopatra  the  Queen,  and  of  the  Kings  the  chil- 

1  Page  286. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  293 


dren  of  Kings."  Antony  perhaps  also  caused  a  bronze 
statue  to  be  made,  representing  his  son  Alexander  Helios 
dressed  in  the  royal  costume  of  his  new  kingdom,  for 
a  figure  has  recently  been  discovered  which  appears  to 
represent  the  boy  in  this  manner.  He  then  wrote  an 
account  of  the  whole  affair  to  the  Senate  in  Rome,  to- 
gether with  a  report  on  his  Armenian  war ;  and  in  a 
covering  letter  he  told  his  agents  to  obtain  a  formal  rati- 
fication of  the  changes  which  he  had  made  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  thrones  in  his  dominions.  The  news  was 
received  in  Italy  with  astonishment,  and  in  official  circles 
the  greatest  exasperation  was  felt.  Antony's  agents  very 
wisely  decided  not  to  read  the  despatches  to  the  Senate ; 
but  Octavian  insisted,  and  after  much  wrangling  their 
contents  were  at  last  publicly  declared.  Stories  at  once 
began  to  circulate  in  which  Antony  figured  as  a  kind 
of  Oriental  Sultan,  living  at  Alexandria  a  life  of  volup- 
tuous degeneracy.  He  was  declared  to  be  constantly 
drunken ;  and,  since  no  such  charge  could  be  brought 
against  Cleopatra,  the  Queen  was  said  to  keep  sober 
by  means  of  a  magical  ring  of  amethyst,  which  had 
the  virtue  of  dispelling  the  fumes  of  wine  from  the 
head  of  the  wearer. 

There  can,  indeed,  be  little  doubt  that  Antony  was 
very  intemperate  at  this  period.  He  was  worried  to 
distraction  by  the  approach  of  the  great  war  with 
Octavian ;  and  he  must  have  felt  that  his  popularity  in 
Rome  was  now  very  much  at  stake.  While  waiting  for 
events  to  shape  themselves,  therefore,  he  attempted  to 
free  his  mind  from  its  anxieties  by  heavy  drinking;  but 
in  so  doing,  it  would  seem  from  subsequent  events,  he 
began  to  lose  the  place  in  Cleopatra's  esteem  which  he 
had  formerly  held.    She  herself  did  not  ever  drink  much 


294     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


wine,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  fact,  just  now  quoted,  that 
she  was  at  all  times  notably  sober;  and  she  must  have 
watched  with  increasing  uneasiness  the  dissolute  habits 
of  the  man  upon  whom  she  was  obliged  to  rely  for  the 
fulfilment  of  her  ambitions. 

The  fact  that  he  was  ceasing  to  be  a  Roman,  and  was 
daily  becoming  more  like  an  Oriental  potentate,  did  not 
trouble  her  so  much.  It  differentiated  him,  of  course, 
from  the  great  Dictator,  whose  memory  became  more 
dear  to  her  as  she  contrasted  his  activities  with  Antony's 
growing  laziness ;  but  all  her  life  she  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  the  ways  of  Eastern  monarchs,  and  she  could 
not  have  been  much  shocked  at  her  husband's  new 
method  of  life,  except  in  so  far  as  it  modified  his  abili- 
ties as  an  active  leader  of  men.  Now  that  the  quarrel 
with  Octavian  was  coming  to  a  head,  her  throne  and 
her  very  existence  depended  on  Antony's  ability  to  in- 
spire and  to  command ;  and  I  dare  say  a  limited  adoption 
of  the  manners  of  the  East  made  him  more  agreeable  to 
the  people  with  whom  he  had  to  deal.  "Cleopatra," 
says  the  violently  partisan  Florus,  "  asked  of  the  drunken 
general  as  the  price  of  her  love  the  Roman  Empire,  and 
Antony  promised  it  to  her,  as  though  Romans  were  easier 
to  conquer  than  Parthians.  .  .  .  Forgetting  his  country, 
his  name,  his  toga,  and  the  insignia  of  his  office,  he  had 
degenerated  wholly,  in  thought,  feeling,  and  dress,  into 
that  monster  of  whom  we  know.  In  his  hand  was  a 
golden  sceptre,  at  his  side  a  scimitar ;  his  purple  robes 
were  clasped  with  great  jewels ;  and  he  wore  a  diadem 
upon  his  head  so  that  he  might  be  a  King  to  match 
the  Queen  he  loved." 

The  Palace  at  Alexandria  had  been  much  embellished 
and  decorated  during  recent  years;  and  it  was  now  a 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  295 


fitting  setting  for  the  ponderous  movements  of  this  burly 
monarch  of  the  East.  Lucan  tells  us  how  sumptuous 
a  place  the  royal  home  had  come  to  be.  The  ceilings 
were  fretted  and  inlaid,  and  gold-foil  hid  the  rafters. 
The  walls  and  pillars  were  mainly  made  of  fine  marble, 
but  a  considerable  amount  of  purple  porphyry^  and 
agate  were  used  in  the  decoration.  The  flooring  of  some 
of  the  halls  was  of  onyx  or  alabaster ;  ebony  was  used 
as  freely  as  common  wood ;  and  ivory  was  to  be  seen 
on  all  sides.  The  doors  were  ornamented  with  tortoise- 
shells  brought  from  India  and  studded  with  emeralds. 
The  couches  and  chairs  were  encrusted  with  gems ;  much 
of  the  furniture  was  shining  with  jasper  and  carnelian ; 
and  there  were  many  priceless  tables  of  carved  ivory. 
The  coverings  were  bright  with  Tyrian  dye,  shining  with 
spangled  gold,  or  fiery  with  cochineal.  About  the  halls 
walked  slaves,  chosen  for  their  good  looks.  Some  were 
dark-skinned,  others  were  white;  some  had  the  crisp 
black  hair  of  the  Ethiopians ;  others  the  golden  or  flaxen 
locks  of  Gaul  and  Germania.  Pliny  tells  us  that  Antony 
bought  two  boys  for  £800  each,  and  that  they  were  sup- 
posed to  be  twins,  but  that  actually  they  came  from 
different  countries.  Of  Cleopatra,  Lucan  writes :  "  She 
breathes  heavily  beneath  the  weight  of  her  ornaments ; 
and  her  white  breasts  shine  through  the  Sidonian  fabric 
which,  wrought  in  close  texture  by  the  sley  of  the 
Chinese,  the  needle  of  the  workmen  of  the  Nile  has 
separated,  loosening  the  warp  by  stretching  out  the 
web."    The  newly-developed  trade  with  India  had  filled 

^  I  suppose  the  "purple  stone"  referred  to  by  Lucan  was  the  famous 
imperial  porphyrj'  from  the  quarries  of  Gebel  Dukhan,  though  I  am  not 
certain  that  the  stone  was  used  as  early  as  this.  Cf.  my  expedition  to  these 
quarries  described  in  my  'Travels  in  the  Upper  Eg)-ptian  Deserts.' 


296     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


the  Palace  with  the  luxurious  fabrics  of  the  Orient ;  and 
the  Greek,  or  even  Egyptian,  character  of  the  materials 
and  objects  in  daily  use  was  beginning  to  be  lost  in 
the  medley  of  heterogenous  articles  drawn  from  all 
parts  of  the  world. 

Amidst  these  theatrical  surroundings  Antony  acted, 
with  a  kind  of  childish  extravagance,  the  part  of  the  half- 
divine  Autocrator  of  the  East.  When  he  was  sober 
his  mind  must  have  been  full  of  cares  and  anxieties ; 
but  on  the  many  occasions  when  he  was  somewhat  in- 
toxicated he  behaved  himself  in  the  manner  of  an  over- 
grown boy.  He  delighted  in  the  general  recognition  of 
his  identity  with  Bacchus  or  Dionysos ;  and  he  loved  to 
hear  himself  spoken  of  as  the  new  "Liber  Pater."  In 
the  festivals  of  that  deity  he  was  driven  through  the 
streets  of  Alexandria  in  a  car  constructed  like  that  tradi- 
tionally used  by  the  bibulous  god ;  a  golden  crown  upon 
his  head,  often  poised,  it  would  seem,  at  a  peculiar  angle, 
garlands  of  ivy  tossed  about  his  shoulders,  buskins  on 
his  feet,  and  the  thyrsus  in  his  hand.  In  this  manner 
he  was  trundled  along  the  stately  Street  of  Canopus, 
surrounded  by  leaping  women  and  prancing  men,  the 
crowds  on  either  side  of  the  road  shouting  and  yelling 
their  merry  salutations  to  him.  A  temple  in  his  honour 
was  begun  in  the  Regia  at  Alexandria,  just  to  the  west 
of  the  Forum  ;  but  this  was  not  completed  until  some 
years  afterwards,  when  it  was  converted  into  a  shrine 
in  honour  of  Octavian,  and  was  known  as  the  Caesareum. 
On  one  occasion  he  assigned  the  part  of  the  sea -god 
Glaucus  to  his  friend  Plancus,  who  forthwith  danced 
about  at  a  banquet,  naked  and  painted  blue,  a  chaplet 
of  sea-weed  upon  his  head  and  a  fish-tail  tied  from  his 
waist. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  297 


Antony  had  never  troubled  himself  much  in  regard 
to  his  dignity  ;  and  now,  in  the  character  of  the  jolly 
ruler  of  the  East,  he  was  quite  unmindful  of  his  appear- 
ance in  the  eyes  of  serious  men.  Often  he  was  to  be 
seen  walking  on  foot  by  the  side  of  Cleopatra's  chariot, 
talking  to  the  eunuchs  and  servants  who  followed  in  her 
train.  He  caused  the  Queen  to  give  him  the  post  of 
Superintendent  of  the  Games,  —  a  position  which  was 
not  considered  to  be  particularly  honourable.  It  is  ap- 
parent that  her  company  had  become  very  essential  to 
him,  and  much  notice  was  taken  of  the  fact  that  he 
now  accompanied  her  wherever  she  went.  He  rode 
through  the  streets  at  her  side,  conducted  the  official 
and  religious  ceremonies  for  her,  or  sat  by  her  when 
she  was  trying  cases  in  the  public  tribunal.  Sometimes 
when  he  himself  was  alone  upon  the  judicial  bench,  look- 
ing out  of  the  window  in  the  midst  of  some  intricate 
judgment  and  by  chance  seeing  Cleopatra's  chariot  pass- 
ing by  across  the  square,  he  would  without  explanation 
start  up  from  his  seat,  run  over  to  her,  and  walk  back 
to  the  Palace  at  her  side,  leaving  the  magistrate,  police, 
and  prisoners  in  open-mouthed  astonishment. 

We  hear  nothing  in  regard  to  Antony's  relations  with 
his  children,  and  it  is  difficult  to  picture  him  as  he 
appeared  in  the  family  circle.  His  stepson  Caesarion, 
his  two  sons  Alexander  and  Ptolemy,  and  his  daughter 
Cleopatra,  were  all  at  this  time  residing  in  the  Palace ; 
and  moreover  his  son  by  Fulvia,  Antyllus,  a  boy  some- 
what younger  than  Caesarion,  had  now  come  to  live 
with  him  in  Alexandria.  It  is  probable  that  he  was 
an  affectionate  and  indulgent  father ;  and  there  must 
have  been  many  happy  scenes  enacted  in  the  royal 
nurseries,  which,  could  they  have  been  recorded,  would 


298     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


have  gone  far  to  correct  the  popular  estimate  of  the 
nature  of  Antony's  home -life  with  Cleopatra.  The 
Queen  was  his  legal  wife ;  ^  and  in  contemplating  the 
extravagances  and  eccentricities  of  his  behaviour  at 
Alexandria,  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  obvious  fact 
that  his  life  at  this  period  had  also  its  domestic  aspect. 
He  did  not  admit  to  himself  that  his  union  with 
Cleopatra  was  in  any  way  scandalous ;  and  writing  to 
Octavian  in  the  following  year  he  seems  to  be  quite 
surprised  that  his  family  life  should  be  regarded  as 
infamous.  "  Is  it  because  I  live  in  intimate  relations 
with  a  Queen  ?  "  he  asks.  "  She  is  my  wife.  Is  this  a 
new  thing  with  me  ?  Have  I  not  acted  so  for  these  nine 
years  ?  "  Indeed,  as  compared  with  Octavian's  private 
life,  the  family  circle  at  Alexandria,  in  spite  of  Antony's 
buffoonery  and  heavy  drinking,  was  by  no  means  wholly 
shameful.  In  Rome  Octavian  was  at  this  time  employ- 
ing his  friends  to  search  the  town  for  women  to  amuse 
him,  and  these  agents,  acting  on  his  orders,  are  related 
to  have  kidnapped  respectable  girls,  and  to  have  torn 
their  clothes  from  them,  as  did  the  common  slave- 
dealers,  in  order  to  ascertain  whether  they  were  fit 
presents  for  their  vile  master.  We  hear  no  such  stories 
in  regard  to  the  jovial  Antony. 

A  characteristic  tale  is  told  by  Plutarch  which  illus- 
trates the  open  -  handed  opulence  of  the  Alexandrian 
court  at  this  time.  A  certain  Philotas,  while  dining 
with  Antony's  son  Antyllus,  shut  the  mouth  of  a  rather 
noisy  comrade  by  a  very  absurd  syllogism,  which  made 

'  Even  Athenaeus  refers  to  Antony  as  being  married  to  Cleopatra ;  and 
the  reader  must  remember  that,  not  the  fact  of  the  marriage,  but  only  the 
date  at  which  it  occurred,  is  at  all  open  to  question.  I  do  not  think  this  is 
generally  recognised. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  299 


everybody  laugh.  Antyllus  was  so  delighted  that  he 
promptly  made  a  present  of  a  sideboard  covered  w^ith 
valuable  plate  to  the  embarrassed  Philotas,  who,  of 
course,  refused  it,  not  imagining  that  a  youth  of  that 
age  could  dispose  in  this  light  manner  of  such  costly 
objects.  Having  returned  to  his  house,  however,  a 
friend  presently  arrived,  bringing  the  plate  to  him ; 
and  on  his  still  objecting  to  receive  it,  "What  ails  the 
man  ?  "  said  the  bearer  of  the  gift.  "  Don't  you  know 
that  he  who  gives  you  this  is  Antony's  son,  who  is  free 
to  give  it  even  if  it  were  all  gold  ?  " 

Thus  the  winter  of  B.C.  34-33  passed,  and  in  the  spring 
of  33  Antony  set  out  for  his  summer  quarters  in  Syria. 
He  desired  to  cement  the  agreement  with  the  King  of 
Media,  in  order  to  guard  himself  against  a  Parthian 
attack  while  engaged  in  the  coming  war  with  Octavian ; 
and  for  this  purpose  he  determined  to  proceed  at  once 
to  the  borders  of  that  country.  Cleopatra,  therefore, 
did  not  accompany  him  ;  and  in  this  fact  we  may  perhaps 
see  an  indication  of  some  loss  of  interest  on  her  part,  due 
to  her  growing  disrespect  for  him.  Passing  through 
Syria  he  went  north-eastwards  into  Armenia,  and  there 
he  seems  to  have  effected  a  meeting  with  the  King  of 
Media.  To  him  he  now  gave  a  large  portion  of  Greater 
Armenia,  and  to  the  King  of  Pontus  he  handed  over  the 
territory  known  as  Lesser  Armenia.  The  little  Median 
princess,  lotapa,  who  had  been  married  to  the  young 
Alexander  Helios,  was  placed  in  the  care  of  Antony  with 
the  idea  that  she  should  be  educated  at  Alexandria. 
With  her  the  King  sent  Antony  a  present  of  the  eagles 
captured  from  his  army  at  the  time  when  the  siege-train 
was  lost  in  B.C.  36 ;  and  he  also  presented  him  with  a 
regiment  of  the   famous   mounted  archers  who  had 


300     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


wrought  so  much  havoc  on  the  Roman  lines  in  the 
late  campaign,  while  in  return  for  these  men  Antony 
sent  a  detachment  of  legionaries  to  the  Median  capital. 

The  Parthian  danger  being  thus  circumvented  by  this 
extremely  important  and  far-reaching  compact  with 
Media,  Antony  set  out  for  Egypt  with  the  idea  of 
spending  the  winter  there  once  more.^  He  took  with 
him  the  little  Princess  lotapa,  and  in  the  early  autumn 
he  reached  Alexandria.  His  news  in  regard  to  Media 
must  have  been  very  satisfactory  to  Cleopatra,  and 
lotapa  thenceforth  became  the  companion  of  the  royal 
children  in  the  Palace.  But  the  news  which  he  had  to 
relate  in  connection  with  Octavian  was  of  the  worst,  and 
Cleopatra  must  have  asked  him  in  astonishment  how  he 
could  think  of  spending  the  winter  quietly  in  Alexandria 
in  view  of  the  imminence  of  war.  In  the  first  place,  the 
Triumvirate^  came  to  an  end  at  the  close  of  the  year, 
and  it  seemed  likely  that  Octavian  would  bring  matters 
to  an  issue  on  that  date.  Then  Octavian  had  attacked 
him  violently  in  the  Senate,  and  excited  the  public  mind 
against  his  rival ;  and  Antony,  hearing  of  this  while  in 
Armenia,  wrote  to  him  an  obscene  letter,  much  too 
disgusting  to  quote  here.  To  this  Octavian  replied  in 
like  manner.  Antony  then  charged  him  with  acting 
unfairly,  firstly,  by  not  dividing  the  spoils  captured  from 
Sextus  Pompeius;  secondly,  by  not  returning  the  ships 
which  had  been  lent  to  him  for  the  Pompeian  war; 
thirdly,  by  not  sharing  the  province  of  Africa  taken  over 
after  the  retirement  of  Lepidus ;  and  lastly,  that  he  had 
parcelled  out  almost  all  the  free  land  in  Italy  amongst 

'  Ferrero  thinks  he  went  direct  to  Ephesus,  but  Bouche-Leclerq  and  others 
are  of  opinion  that  he  went  first  to  Alexandria,  and  with  this  I  agree. 
^  Page  262. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  301 


his  own  soldiers,  thus  leaving  none  for  Antony's  legion- 
aries. Octavian  had  replied  that  he  would  divide  all  the 
spoils  of  war  as  soon  as  Antony  gave  him  a  share  in 
Armenia  and  Egypt,  while  in  regard  to  the  lands  given 
as  rewards  to  his  legionaries,  Antony's  troops  could 
hardly  want  them,  since,  no  doubt,  by  now  they  had 
all  Media  and  Parthia  to  share  amongst  themselves. 
This  reference  to  Egypt,  as  though  it  were  a  province 
of  Rome  instead  of  an  independent  kingdom,  must  have 
been  deeply  annoying  to  Cleopatra ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  was  pleasant  to  hear  that  Octavian  had  abused 
Antony  for  living  immorally  with  the  Queen,  and  that 
Antony  had  replied  by  stating  emphatically  that  she 
was  his  legal  wife. 

The  war,  thus,  was  now  on  the  eve  of  breaking  out, 
and  Cleopatra  must  have  been  in  a  fever  of  excitement. 
Antony's  vague  and  casual  behaviour  seems,  therefore, 
to  have  annoyed  her  very  considerably ;  and  it  was  not 
until  he  had  decided  to  take  up  his  winter  quarters  at 
Ephesus  instead  of  in  Egypt  that  harmony  was  restored. 
Once  aroused,  he  acted  with  energy.  He  sent  messengers 
in  all  directions  to  gather  in  his  forces ;  and  he  eagerly 
helped  Cleopatra  to  make  her  warlike  preparations  in 
her  own  country.  In  a  few  weeks  the  arrangements 
were  complete,  and  Antony  and  Cleopatra  set  out  for 
Ephesus  early  in  the  winter  of  B.C.  33,  at  the  head  of  a 
huge  assemblage  of  naval  and  military  armaments  and 
munitions.  The  people  of  Alexandria  must  have  realised 
that  their  Queen  was  going  forth  upon  the  most  marvel- 
lous adventure.  Only  a  few  years  ago  they  had  lain 
prone  under  the  heel  of  Italy,  expecting  at  any  moment 
to  be  deprived  of  their  independent  existence.  Now, 
thanks  to  the  skill,  the  tact,  and  the  charm  of  their  divine 


302     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Queen,  their  incarnate  Isis-Aphrodite,  they  were  privileged 
to  witness  the  departure  of  the  ships,  the  hosts,  and  the 
captains  of  Egypt  for  the  conquest  of  mighty  Rome. 
They  had  heard  Cleopatra  swear  to  seat  herself  and  her 
son  Csesarion  in  the  Capitol ;  and  there  could  have 
been  few  in  the  cheering  crowds  whose  hearts  did  not 
swell  with  pride  at  the  thought  of  the  glorious  future 
which  awaited  their  country  and  their  royal  house. 


303 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  DECLINE  OF  ANTONY'S  POWER. 

The  city  of  Ephesus  was  situated  near  the  mouth  of 
the  river  Caystrus  in  the  shadow  of  the  Messogis 
mountains,  not  far  south  of  Smyrna,  and  overlooking 
the  island  of  Samos.  Standing  on  the  coast  of  Asia 
Minor,  near  the  frontier  which  divided  Lydia  from 
Caria,  it  looked  directly  across  the  sea  to  Athens,  and 
was  sheltered  from  the  menacing  coasts  of  Italy  by  the 
intervening  Greek  peninsula.  Ephesus,  I  need  hardly 
remind  the  reader,  was  famous  for  its  temple,  dedicated 
to  Diana  of  the  Ephesians.  The  building  was  con- 
structed of  white  marble  and  cypress-  and  cedar-wood, 
and  was  richly  ornamented  with  gold.  Many  statues 
adorned  its  colonnades,  and  there  were  many  celebrated 
paintings  upon  its  walls,  including  a  fine  picture  of 
Alexander  the  Great.  Diana  was  here  worshipped  under 
the  name  Artemis,  and  was  often  identified  with  Venus, 
with  whom  Cleopatra  claimed  identity.  Here  Antony 
and  Cleopatra  collected  their  forces,  and  soon  the 
ancient  city  came  to  be  the  largest  military  and  naval 
centre  in  the  world.  Cleopatra  had  brought  with  her 
from  Egypt  a  powerful  fleet  of  two  hundred  ships  of 
war,  and  a  host  of  soldiers,  sailors,  workmen,  and  slaves. 


304     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


She  had  drawn  20,000  talents  (i.e.,  ^4,000,000)  from  her 
treasury ;  and,  besides  this,  she  had  brought  a  vast 
amount  of  corn,  foodstuffs,  clothing,  arms,  and  munitions 
of  war.  From  Syria,  Armenia,  and  Pontus,  vessels  were 
arriving  daily  with  further  supplies ;  and  Antony's  own 
fleet  of  many  hundred  battleships  and  vessels  of  burden 
was  rapidly  mobilising  at  the  mouth  of  the  river.  All 
day  and  all  night  the  roads  to  the  city  thundered  with  the 
tread  of  armed  men,  as  the  kings  and  rulers  of  the  East 
marched  their  armies  to  the  rendezvous.  Bocchus,  King 
of  Mauritania;  Tarcondimotus,  ruler  of  Upper  Cilicia; 
Archelaus,  King  of  Cappadocia;  Philadelphus,  King  of 
Paphlagonia ;  Mithridates,  King  of  Commagene  ;  Sadalas 
and  Rhcemetalces,  Kings  of  Thrace  ;  Amyntas,  King  of 
Galatia,  and  many  other  great  rulers,  responded  to  the 
call  to  arms,  and  hastened  to  place  their  services  at  the 
disposal  of  Antony  and  his  Queen. 

One  cannot  help  wondering  whether  these  mighty  men 
realised  for  what  they  were  about  to  fight.  They  were 
flocking  to  the  standard  of  a  man  who  had  held  supreme 
power  over  their  countries  for  many  years,  and  whose 
rule  had  been  kindly  and  easy.  They  owed  a  great  deal 
to  him, — in  some  cases  their  very  thrones  ;  and,  were  he 
now  to  be  defeated  by  his  rival,  they  would  probably  fall 
with  him.  Success,  however,  seemed  certain  in  view  of 
Antony's  enormous  forces ;  and  they  therefore  felt  that 
the  assistance  which  they  gave  would  undoubtedly  bear 
abundant  fruit,  and  that  their  reward  would  be  great. 
Antony,  of  course,  told  them,  perhaps  with  his  tongue 
in  his  cheek,  that  he  was  fighting  to  some  extent  on 
behalf  of  the  Roman  Republic,  in  order  to  free  the 
country  from  the  oppression  of  an  autocratic  rule,  and 
to  restore  the  old  constitution.    He  was  not  such  a  fool 


CLEOPATRA  AND  HER  SON  C/ESARION. 

REPRESENTED  CONVENTIONALLY  UPON   A  WALL  OF  THE  TEMPLE   OF  DENDERA. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  305 


as  to  admit  that  he  was  aiming  at  a  throne  :  Julius  Caesar 
had  been  assassinated  on  that  very  account,  and  a  declara- 
tion of  this  kind  would  likewise  alienate  a  large  number 
of  his  supporters  in  Rome.  He  still  had  numerous  friends 
in  the  capital,  men  who  disliked  the  forbidding  person- 
ality of  Octavian,  and  who  admired  his  own  frank  and 
open  manners.  Moreover,  a  considerable  body  supported 
him  in  memory  of  the  great  Dictator,  regarding  Antony 
as  the  guardian  of  young  Caesarion,  whose  rights  they 
had  at  heart.  A  story,  of  which  we  have  already  heard, 
had  been  circulated  in  regard  to  Julius  Caesar's  will.  It 
was  said  that  the  document  which  decreed  Octavian  the 
heir  was  not  the  Dictator's  last  testament,  but  that  he 
had  made  a  later  will  in  favour  of  Cleopatra's  son, 
Caesarion,  which  had  been  suppressed,  probably  by  Cal- 
purnia.  Thus,  to  many  of  his  Roman  friends,  Antony 
was  fighting  to  carry  out  the  Dictator's  wishes,  and  to 
overthrow  the  usurping  Octavian.  Was  this,  one  asks, 
the  justification  which  he  placed  before  the  consideration 
of  the  vassal  kings  ?  At  any  rate  Dion  Cassius  states 
definitely  that  Antony's  recognition  of  Cassarion's  right 
to  this  great  inheritance  was  the  real  cause  of  the  war. 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  this  point  is  fully  recog- 
nised by  historians  ;  but  it  is  very  apparent  that  Antony's 
position  at  Ephesus  would  have  been  almost  untenable 
without  a  justification  such  as  that  of  the  championing 
of  Caesarion.  It  was  plain  to  every  eastern  eye  that 
he  was  acting  in  conjunction  with  Egypt  and  with 
Cleopatra ;  and  all  men  now  knew  that  the  Queen  was 
his  legal  wife.  It  was  obvious  that,  if  successful,  he 
would  enter  Rome  with  the  Queen  of  Egypt  by  his  side. 
Yet,  at  the  same  time,  he  was  denying  that  he  intended 
to  establish  a  monarchy  in  Rome  on  the  lines  proposed 

u 


3o6     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


by  the  Dictator,  and  he  was  talking  a  great  deal  of 
rubbish  about  reviving  the  Republic.  There  is,  surely, 
only  one  way  in  which  these  divergent  interests  could 
be  made  to  fit  into  a  scheme  capable  of  satisfying  both 
his  Roman  and  his  Oriental  supporters,  and  would  serve 
as  a  professed  justification  for  the  war :  he  was  going  to 
establish  the  Dictator's  son,  Caesarion,  in  his  father's 
seat,  and  to  turn  out  the  wrongful  heir,  Octavian.  He 
himself  would  be  the  boy's  guardian,  and  would  act, 
at  any  rate  in  Italy,  on  republican  lines.  Cleopatra,  as 
his  wife,  would  doff  her  crown  while  in  Italy,  but  would 
assume  it  once  more  within  her  own  dominions,  just  as 
Julius  Caesar  had  proposed  to  do  in  the  last  year  of  his 
life.^  Of  course  it  must  have  been  recognised  that  the 
throne  of  Rome  would  ultimately  be  offered  to  him,  and 
that  he  would  hand  it  on  to  Caesarion  in  due  course, 
thus  founding  a  dynasty  of  the  blood  of  the  divine  Julius  ; 
but  this  fact  was  kept  severely  in  the  background.  If 
Caesarion  and  his  cause  had  not  formed  part  of  the  casus 
belli,  it  is  unlikely  that  Antony  would  have  been  at  all 
widely  supported  in  Rome ;  and  what  man  would  have 
tolerated  the  armed  presence  of  Cleopatra  and  her 
Egyptians,  save  in  her  capacity  as  mother  of  the 
claimant  and  wife  of  the  claimant's  guardian  ?  With- 
out Caesarion,  what  was  Antony's  justification  for  the 
war?  I  can  find  very  little.  He  would  have  been 
fighting  to  turn  out  Octavian,  who,  in  that  case,  would 
have  been  the  rightful  and  only  heir;  he  would  have 
been  introducing  Cleopatra  into  Roman  politics  with 
the  obvious  intention  of  creating  a  throne  for  her,  the 
very  step  which  had  been  Caesar's  undoing ;  and  he 
would  have  been  offering  her  royal  view  of  life  in 

1  Page  162. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  307 


exchange  for  Octavian's  republican  sentiments,  not  as 
something  of  which  the  best  had  to  be  made  under  the 
circumstances,  but  as  a  habit  of  mind  desirable  in  itself. 
His  apparent  deference  to  Cleopatra,  and  the  manner 
in  which  she  shared  his  supremacy,  must  have  been 
liable  to  cause  much  offence  in  Rome  and  in  Ephesus, 
and  would  never  have  been  tolerated  had  she  not  been 
put  forward  as  Julius  Caesar's  widow  and  the  mother 
of  his  son. 

The  armies  marching  into  the  city  comprised  soldiers 
of  almost  every  nation.  There  were  nineteen  Roman 
legions;  troops  of  Gauls  and  Germans;  contingents 
of  Moorish,  Egyptian,  Sudanese,  Arab,  and  Bedouin 
warriors ;  the  wild  tribesmen  from  Media ;  hardy  Ar- 
menians ;  barbaric  fighting  men  from  the  coast  of  the 
Black  Sea ;  Greeks,  Jews,  and  Syrians.  The  streets  of 
the  city  were  packed  with  men  in  every  kind  of  costume, 
bearing  all  manner  of  arms,  and  talking  a  hundred  lan- 
guages. Never,  probably,  in  the  world's  history  had  so 
many  nationalities  been  gathered  together ;  and  Cleo- 
patra's heart  must  have  been  nigh  bursting  with  feminine 
pride  and  gratification  at  the  knowledge  that  in  reality 
she  had  been  the  cause  of  the  great  mobilisation.  They 
had  come  together  at  Antony's  bidding,  it  is  true ;  but 
they  had  come  to  fight  her  battles.  They  were  here 
to  vindicate  her  honour,  to  place  her  upon  the  throne 
of  the  World.  With  their  forests  of  swords  and  spears 
they  were  about  to  justify  those  nights,  nearly  sixteen 
years  ago,  when,  as  the  wild  little  queen  of  little  Egypt, 
she  lay  in  the  arms  of  Rome's  mighty  old  reprobate. 
In  those  far-off  days  she  was  fighting  to  retain  the  in- 
dependence of  her  small  country  and  her  dynasty :  now 
she  was  Queen  of  dominions  more  extensive  than  any 


3o8     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


governed  by  the  proudest  of  the  Pharaohs,  and  she  would 
soon  see  her  royal  house  raised  to  a  height  never  before 
attained  by  man.  It  was  her  custom  at  this  time  to  use 
as  an  oath  the  words,  "  As  surely  as  I  shall  one  day 
administer  justice  on  the  Capitol " ;  and,  proudly  acting 
the  part  of  hostess  in  Ephesus,  she  must  have  felt  that 
the  great  day  was  very  near.  Already  the  Ephesians 
were  hailing  her  as  their  Queen,  and  the  deference  paid 
to  her  by  the  vassal-kings  was  very  marked. 

In  the  spring  of  B.C.  32  some  four  hundred  Roman 
senators  arrived  at  Antony's  headquarters.  These  men 
stated  that  Octavian,  after  denouncing  his  rival  in  the 
Senate,  had  advised  all  who  were  on  the  enemy's  side 
to  quit  the  city,  whereupon  they  had  set  sail  for  Ephesus, 
leaving  behind  them  some  seven  or  eight  hundred  senators 
who  either  held  with  Octavian  or  pursued  a  non-committal 
policy.  War  had  not  yet  been  declared,  but  no  declaration 
seemed  now  to  be  necessary. 

With  the  arrival  of  the  senators  trouble  began  to  brew 
in  the  camp.  Cleopatra's  power  and  authority  were  much 
resented  by  the  new-comers,  to  whom  the  existing  situa- 
tion was  something  of  a  revelation.  They  had  not  realised 
that  the  Queen  of  Egypt  was  playing  an  active  part  in 
the  preparations,  and  many  of  them  speedily  recognised 
the  fact  that  Antony,  as  Autocrat  of  the  East  and  hus- 
band of  Cleopatra,  was  hardly  the  man  to  restore  a 
republican  government  to  Rome.  It  was  not  long  before 
some  of  them  began  to  show  their  dislike  of  the  Queen 
and  to  hint  that  she  ought  to  retire  into  the  background, 
at  any  rate  for  the  time  being.  There  was  one  old  soldier, 
Cnaeus  Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  the  representative  of  an 
ancient  republican  family,  who  would  never  acknowledge 
Cleopatra's  right  to  the  supremacy  which  she  had  at- 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  309 


tained,  nor,  on  any  occasion,  would  he  address  her  by 
her  title,  but  always  called  her  simply  by  her  name. 
This  man  at  length  told  Antony  in  the  most  direct 
manner  that  he  ought  to  send  Cleopatra  back  to  Egypt, 
there  to  await  the  conclusion  of  the  war.  He  seems 
to  have  pointed  out  that  her  presence  with  the  army 
gave  a  false  impression,  and  would  be  liable  to  alienate 
the  sympathies  of  many  of  his  Roman  friends.  He  sug- 
gested, perhaps,  that  the  Queen  should  vacate  her  place 
in  favour  of  Caesarion,  whose  rights  few  denied.  Antony, 
seeing  the  wisdom  of  this  advice,  told  Cleopatra  to  return 
to  Alexandria ;  but  she,  in  great  alarm,  is  said  to  have 
bribed  Publius  Canidius,  one  of  Antony's  most  trusted 
councillors,  to  plead  with  him  on  her  behalf — the  result 
being  that  the  proposal  of  Domitius  Ahenobarbus  was 
discarded,  and  the  Queen  remained  with  the  army. 
Publius  Canidius  had  pointed  out  to  Antony  that  the 
Egyptian  fleet  would  fight  much  more  willingly  if  their 
Queen  were  with  them,  and  Egyptian  money  would  be 
more  readily  obtained  if  she  herself  were  felt  to  be  in 
need  of  it.  "And,  besides,"  said  he,  "I  do  not  see  to 
which  of  the  kings  who  have  joined  this  expedition 
Cleopatra  is  inferior  in  wisdom ;  for  she  has  for  a  long 
time  governed  by  herself  a  vast  kingdom,  and  has  learnt 
in  your  company  the  handling  of  great  affairs."  ^ 

The  Queen's  continuance  at  Ephesus  and  her  con- 
nection with  the  war  was  the  cause  of  great  dissensions, 
and  the  Roman  senators  began  to  range  themselves  into 
two  distinct  parties :  those  who  fell  in  with  Antony's 
schemes,  and  those  who  now  favoured  a  reconciliation 
with  Octavian  as  a  means  of  ridding  Roman  politics  of 
Cleopatra's  disturbing  influence.    When  the  efforts  of  the 

'■  Plutarch. 


310     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


peacemakers  came  to  her  ears  her  annoyance  must  have 
been  intense.  Were  all  her  hopes  to  be  dashed  to  the 
ground  just  because  a  few  stiff-backed  senators  disliked 
the  idea  of  a  foreign  sovereign  concerning  herself  with 
republican  politics  ?  She  no  longer  trusted  Antony,  for 
it  seemed  apparent  to  her  that  he  was,  at  heart,  striving 
only  for  his  own  aggrandisement,  and  was  prepared  to 
push  her  into  the  background  at  the  moment  when  her 
interests  threatened  to  injure  his  own.  It  was  she  who 
had  incited  him  into  warfare,  who  had  kept  him  up  to 
the  mark,  aroused  him  to  his  duties,  and  financed  to  a 
large  extent  his  present  operations ;  and  yet  he  was, 
even  at  this  eleventh  hour,  half-minded  to  listen  to  those 
who  urged  him  to  make  peace.  Only  recently  he  had 
made  some  sort  of  offer  to  Octavian  to  lay  down  his 
arms  if  the  latter  would  do  likewise.  At  the  time 
Cleopatra  had  probably  thought  this  simply  a  diplomatic 
move  designed  to  gain  popularity ;  but  now  she  seems 
to  have  questioned  seriously  Antony's  desire  for  war, 
and  to  have  asked  herself  whether  he  would  not  much 
prefer  peace,  quietness,  and  leisure  wherein  to  drink 
and  feast  to  his  jovial  heart's  content.  Yet  war  was 
essential  to  her  ambitions,  and  to  the  realisation  of  the 
rights  of  her  son.  If  Octavian  were  not  overthrown, 
she  would  never  have  any  sense  of  security ;  and  with 
all  her  heart  she  desired  to  come  to  a  safe  harbour  after 
these  years  of  storm  and  stress. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  to  her  the  need  of  prevent- 
ing peace  was  paramount.  She  therefore  made  one  last 
effort  in  this  direction ;  and,  bringing  all  her  arts  and 
devices  to  bear  upon  her  husband,  she  began  to  per- 
suade him  to  issue  a  writ  casting  off  Octavia  and 
thereby  insulting  Octavian  beyond  the  limits  of  apology. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  311 


As  soon  as  the  scheme  came  to  the  ears  of  the  peace 
party  pressure  was  brought  to  bear  on  Antony  to  effect 
a  reconciliation  with  Octavia ;  and  the  unfortunate  man 
appears  to  have  been  badgered  and  pestered  by  both 
factions  until  he  must  have  been  heartily  sick  of  the 
subject.  Cleopatra's  councils,  however,  at  last  prevailed 
to  this  extent,  that  Antony  decided  to  make  a  forward 
movement  and  to  cross  the  sea  to  Greece,  thus  bringing 
hostilities  a  step  nearer.  At  the  end  of  April  he  sailed 
over  from  Ephesus  to  the  island  of  Samos,  leaving  a 
part  of  the  army  behind  him.  Here  he  remained  for 
two  or  three  weeks,  during  which  time,  in  reaction  after 
his  worries,  he  indulged  in  a  round  of  dissipations.  He 
had  told  his  various  vassals  to  bring  with  them  to  the 
rendezvous  their  leading  actors  and  comedians,  so  that 
the  great  gathering  should  not  lack  amusement ;  and 
now  these  players  were  shipped  across  to  Samos,  there 
to  perform  before  this  audience  of  kings  and  rulers. 
These  sovereigns  competed  with  one  another  in  the 
giving  of  superb  banquets,  but  we  do  not  now  hear  of 
any  such  extravagances  on  the  part  of  Cleopatra,  who 
was  probably  far  too  anxious,  and  too  sobered,  to  give 
any  extraordinary  attention  to  her  duties  as  hostess. 
Splendid  sacrifices  were  offered  to  the  gods  in  the  island 
temples,  each  city  contributing  an  ox  for  this  purpose ; 
and  the  sacred  buildings  must  have  resounded  with 
invocations  to  almost  every  popular  deity  of  the  east  and 
west.  The  contrast  was  striking  between  the  brilliancy 
and  festivity  at  Samos  and  the  anxiety  and  dejection  of 
the  cities  of  the  rest  of  the  world,  which  had  been  bereft 
of  their  soldiers  and  their  money,  and  were  about  to 
be  plunged  into  all  the  horrors  of  internecine  warfare. 
"  While  pretty  nearly  the  whole  world,"  says  Plutarch, 


312     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


"  was  filled  with  groans  and  lamentations,  this  one 
island  for  some  days  resounded  with  piping  and  harping, 
theatres  filling,  and  choruses  playing;  so  that  men  began 
to  ask  themselves  what  would  be  done  to  celebrate  victory 
when  they  went  to  such  an  expense  of  festivity  at  the 
opening  of  the  war." 

Towards  the  end  of  May  the  great  assemblage  crossed 
over  the  sea  to  Athens,  and  here  Antony  and  Cleopatra 
held  their  court.  The  Queen's  mind  was  now,  I  fancy, 
in  a  very  disturbed  condition,  owing  to  the  ominous 
dissensions  arising  from  her  presence  with  the  army, 
and  to  the  lack  of  confidence  which  she  was  feeling  in 
her  husband's  sincerity.  I  think  it  very  probable  that 
they  were  not  on  the  best  of  terms  with  one  another 
at  this  time,  and,  although  Antony  was  perhaps  a  good 
deal  more  devoted  to  the  Queen  than  he  had  been 
before,  there  may  have  been  some  bickering  and  actual 
quarrelling.  Cleopatra  desired  the  divorce  of  Octavia 
and  immediate  war,  but  Antony  on  his  part  was  seem- 
ingly disinclined  to  take  any  decisive  steps.  He  was, 
in  fact,  in  a  very  great  dilemma.  He  had,  apparently, 
promised  the  Queen  that  if  he  were  victorious  he  would 
at  once  aim  for  the  monarchy  proposed  by  Julius  Cccsar, 
and  would  arrange  for  Csesarion  to  succeed  in  due  course 
to  the  throne ;  but  now  it  had  been  pointed  out  to  him 
by  the  majority  of  the  senators  who  were  with  him  that 
he  was  earnestly  expected  to  restore  the  republic,  and  to 
celebrate  his  victory  by  becoming  once  more  an  ordinary 
citizen.  In  early  life  he  would  have  faced  these  diffi- 
culties with  a  light  heart,  and  devised  some  means  of 
turning  the  situation  to  his  own  advantage.  Now,  how- 
ever, the  power  of  his  will  had  been  undermined  by 
excessive  drinking ;  and,  moreover,  he  had  come  to  be 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  313 


extremely  dependent  upon  Cleopatra  in  all  things.  He 
was  very  fond  of  her,  and  was  becoming  daily  more 
maudlin  in  his  affections.  He  was  now  nearly  fifty 
years  old ;  and,  with  the  decrease  of  his  vitality,  he  had 
ceased  to  be  so  promiscuous  in  affairs  of  the  heart, 
centering  his  interest  more  wholly  upon  the  Queen, 
though  she  herself  was  no  longer  very  youthful,  being 
at  this  time  some  thirty-eight  years  of  age.  His  quarrels 
with  her  seemed  to  have  distressed  him  very  much,  and 
in  his  weakened  condition,  her  growing  disrespect  for 
him  caused  him  to  be  more  devotedly  her  slave.  He 
seems  to  have  watched  with  a  sort  of  bibulous  admira- 
tion her  masterly  and  energetic  handling  of  affairs,  and 
he  was  anxious  to  do  his  best  to  retain  her  affection 
for  him,  which  he  could  see,  was  on  the  wane.  To  the 
dauntless  heart  of  a  woman  like  Cleopatra,  however,  no 
appeal  could  be  made  save  by  manly  strength  and 
powerful  determination ;  and  one  seems  to  observe  the 
growth  in  the  Queen's  mind  of  a  kind  of  horror  at  the 
rapid  degeneration  of  the  man  whom  she  had  loved  and 
trusted. 

To  make  matters  worse,  there  arrived  at  Athens 
Antony's  fourteen-year-old  son,  Antyllus,  whom  we  have 
already  met  at  Alexandria.  He  had  recently  been  in 
Rome,  where  he  had  been  kindly  treated  by  the  dutiful 
Octavia,  whose  attitude  to  all  her  husband's  children 
was  invariably  generous  and  noble.  Antony  regarded 
this  boy,  it  would  seem,  with  great  affection,  and  had 
caused  him  to  be  proclaimed  an  hereditary  prince.  The 
lad  became  something  of  a  rival  to  Caesarion,  to  whom 
Cleopatra  was  devotedly  attached ;  and  one  may  per- 
haps see  in  his  presence  at  Athens  a  further  cause  for 
dissension. 


314     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


At  length,  however,  early  in  June  the  Queen  persuaded 
Antony  to  take  the  final  step,  and  to  divorce  Octavia. 
Having  placed  the  matter  before  his  senators,  by  whom 
the  question  was  angrily  discussed,  he  sent  messengers 
to  Rome  to  serve  Octavia  with  the  order  of  ejection 
from  his  house ;  and  at  the  same  time  he  issued  a 
command  to  the  troops  still  at  Ephesus  to  cross  at 
once  to  Greece.  This  was  tantamount  to  a  declaration 
of  war,  and  Cleopatra's  mind  must  have  been  extremely 
relieved  thereby.  No  sooner,  however,  had  this  step 
been  taken  than  many  of  Antony's  Roman  friends 
appear  to  have  come  to  him  in  the  greatest  alarm, 
pointing  out  that  the  brutal  treatment  of  Octavia,  who 
had  won  all  men's  sympathy  by  her  quiet  and  dutiful 
behaviour,  would  turn  from  him  a  great  number  of  his 
supporters  in  Italy,  and  would  be  received  as  a  clear 
indication  of  his  subserviency  to  Cleopatra.  They  im- 
plored him  to  correct  this  impression ;  and  Antony, 
harrassed  and  confused,  thereupon  made  a  speech  to 
his  Roman  legions  promising  them  that  within  two 
months  of  their  final  victory  he  would  re-establish  the 
republic. 

The  announcement  must  have  come  as  a  shock  to 
Cleopatra,  and  must  have  shown  her  clearly  that  Antony 
was  playing  a  double  game.  She  realised,  no  doubt,  that 
the  promise  did  not  necessitate  the  abandonment  of  their 
designs  in  regard  to  the  monarchy ;  for,  after  establish- 
ing the  old  constitution,  Antony  would  have  plenty  of 
time  in  which  to  build  the  foundations  of  a  throne. 
Yet  the  declaration  unnerved  her,  and  caused  her  to 
recognise  with  more  clarity  the  great  divergence  between 
her  autocratic  sentiments  and  the  democratic  principles 
of  the  country  she  was  attempting  to  bring  under  her 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  315 


sway.  She  saw  that,  little  by  little,  the  basis  upon  which 
the  project  of  the  war  was  founded  was  being  changed. 
At  first  the  great  justification  for  hostilities  had  been  the 
ousting  of  Octavian  from  the  estate  belonging  by  right 
to  her  son,  Csesarion.  Now  the  talk  was  all  of  liberty, 
of  democracy,  and  of  the  restoration  of  republican  insti- 
tutions. 

Her  overwrought  feelings,  however,  were  somewhat 
soothed  by  Antony's  personal  behaviour,  which  at  this 
time  was  anything  but  democratic.  He  was  allowing 
himself  to  be  recognised  as  a  divine  personage  by  the 
Athenians,  and  he  insisted  on  the  payment  of  the  most 
royal  and  celestial  honours  to  Cleopatra,  of  whom  he 
was  at  this  time  inordinately  proud.  The  Queen  was, 
indeed,  in  these  days  supreme,  and  the  early  authors 
are  all  agreed  that  Antony  was  to  a  large  extent  under 
her  thumb.  The  Athenians,  recognising  her  as  their 
fellow- Greek,  were  eager  to  admit  her  omnipotence. 
They  caused  her  statue  to  be  set  up  in  the  Acropolis 
near  that  already  erected  to  Antony ;  they  hailed  her 
as  Aphrodite ;  they  voted  her  all  manner  of  municipal 
honours,  and,  to  announce  the  fact,  sent  a  deputation 
to  her  which  was  headed  by  Antony  in  his  role  as  a 
freeman  of  the  city.  Octavia,  it  will  be  remembered, 
had  resided  at  Athens  some  years  previously,  and  had 
been  much  liked  by  the  citizens ;  but  the  memory  of 
her  quiet  and  pathetic  figure  was  quickly  obliterated 
by  the  presence  of  the  splendid  little  Queen  of  Egypt 
who  sat  by  Antony's  side  at  the  head  of  a  gathering 
of  kings  and  princes.  Already  she  seemed  to  be  Queen 
of  the  Earth ;  for,  acting  as  hostess  to  all  these 
monarchs,  speaking  to  each  in  his  own  language,  and 
entertaining  them  with  her  brilliant  wit,  she  appeared 


3i6     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


to  be  the  leading  spirit  both  in  their  festivities  and  in 
their  councils, 

Antony,  meanwhile,  having  quieted  the  dissensions 
amongst  his  supporters,  gave  himself  up  to  merry-making 
in  his  habitual  manner;  and  presently  he  caused  the 
Athenians  to  recognise  him  formally  as  Dionysos,  or 
Bacchus,  come  down  to  earth.  In  anticipation  of  a 
certain  Bacchic  day  of  festival  he  set  all  the  carpenters 
in  the  city  to  make  a  huge  skeleton  roof  over  the  big 
theatre,  this  being  then  covered  with  g^een  branches 
and  vines,  as  in  the  caves  sacred  to  this  god ;  and  from 
these  branches  hundreds  of  drums,  faun-skins,  and  other 
Bacchic  toys  and  symbols  were  suspended.  On  the 
festal  day  Antony  sat  himself,  with  his  friends  around 
him,  in  the  middle  of  the  theatre,  the  afternoon  sun 
splashing  down  upon  them  through  the  interlaced  green- 
ery; and  thus,  in  the  guise  of  Bacchus,  he  presided  at 
a  wild  drinking-bout,  hundreds  of  astonished  Athenians 
watching  him  from  around  the  theatre.  When  dark- 
ness had  fallen  the  city  was  illuminated,  and,  in  the 
light  of  a  thousand  torches  and  lanterns,  Antony  rollicked 
up  to  the  Acropolis,  where  he  was  proclaimed  as  the  god 
himself. 

Many  were  the  banquets  given  at  this  time  both  by 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  and  the  behaviour  of  the  former 
was  often  uproarious  and  undignified.  On  one  state 
occasion  he  caused  much  excitement  by  going  across  to 
Cleopatra  in  the  middle  of  the  meal  and  rubbing  her 
feet,  a  ministration  always  performed  by  a  slave,  and 
now  undertaken  by  him,  it  is  said,  to  fulfil  a  wager. 
He  was  always  heedless  of  public  opinion,  and  at  this 
period  of  his  life  the  habit  of  indifference  to  comment 
had  grown  upon  him  to  a  startling  extent.  Frequently 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  317 


he  would  rudely  interrupt  an  audience  which  he  was 
giving  to  one  of  the  vassal  kings  by  receiving  and  openly 
reading  some  message  from  Cleopatra  written  upon  a 
tablet  of  onyx  or  crystal ;  and  once  when  Furnius,  a 
famous  orator,  was  pleading  a  case  before  him,  he  brought 
the  eloquent  speech  to  an  abrupt  end  by  hurrying  off 
to  join  the  Queen  outside,  having  entirely  forgotten,  it 
would  seem,  that  the  orator's  arguments  were  being 
addressed  to  himself. 

An  event  now  occurred  which  threw  the  whole  of  the 
Antonian  party  into  a  state  of  the  utmost  anxiety.  Two 
of  the  leading  men  at  that  time  in  Athens  deserted  and 
went  over  to  Octavian.  One  of  these,  Titius,  has  already 
been  noticed  in  connection  with  the  arrest  and  execution 
of  Sextus  Pompeius ;  the  other,  Plancus,  was  the  man 
who  made  so  great  a  fool  of  himself  at  Alexandria  when 
he  painted  himself  blue  and  danced  naked  about  the 
room,  as  has  been  described  already.^  Velleius  speaks 
of  him  as  "the  meanest  flatterer  of  the  Queen,  a  man 
more  obsequious  than  any  slave  " ;  and  one  need  not  be 
surprised,  therefore,  that  Cleopatra  was  rude  to  him, 
which  was  the  cause,  so  he  said,  of  his  desertion.  These 
two  men  had  both  been  witnesses  to  Antony's  will,  a 
copy  of  which  had  been  deposited  with  the  Vestal 
Virgins ;  and  as  soon  as  they  were  come  to  Rome  they 
informed  Octavian  of  its  contents,  who  promptly  went 
to  the  temple  of  Vesta,  seized  the  document,  and,  a  few 
days  later,  read  it  out  to  the  Senate.  Many  senators 
were  scandalised  at  the  proceedings ;  but  they  were, 
nevertheless,  curious  to  hear  what  the  will  set  forth,  and 
therefore  did  not  oppose  the  reading.  The  only  clause, 
however,  out  of  which  Octavian  was  able  to  make  much 

1  Page  296. 


3i8     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


capital  was  that  wherein  Antony  stated  that  if  he  were  to 
die  in  Rome  he  desired  his  body,  after  being  carried  in 
state  through  the  Forum,  to  be  sent  to  Alexandria,  there 
to  be  buried  beside  Cleopatra. 

The  two  deserters  now  began  to  spread  throughout 
Italy  all  manner  of  stories  derogatory  to  Antony,  and 
to  heap  abuse  upon  the  Queen,  whom  they  described 
as  having  complete  ascendancy  over  her  husband,  due, 
they  were  sure,  to  the  magical  love-potions  which  she 
secretly  administered  to  him.  When  we  consider  that 
the  accusations  made  by  disreputable  tattlers,  such  as 
Plancus,  were  all  concerned  with  Antony's  devotion  to 
her,  we  may  realise  how  little  there  really  was  to  be 
brought  against  her.  Antony,  they  said,  was  under  her 
magical  spell ;  he  had  allowed  the  Ephesians  to  hail 
her  as  Queen  ;  she  had  forced  him  to  present  to  her 
the  library  of  Pergamum  (a  city  not  far  from  Ephesus), 
consisting  of  200,000  volumes ;  he  was  wont  to  become 
drunken  while  she,  of  course  by  magic,  remained  sober ; 
he  had  become  her  slave  and  even  rubbed  her  feet  always 
for  her,  and  so  on.  Such  rubbishy  tales  as  these  were 
the  basis  upon  which  the  fabulous  story  of  Cleopatra's 
terrible  wickedness  was  founded,  and  presently  we  hear 
her  spoken  of  as  "  the  harlot  queen  of  incestuous 
Canopus,  who  aspired  to  set  up  against  Jupiter  the 
barking  Anubis,  and  to  drown  the  Roman  trumpet  with 
her  jangling  systrum."  ^ 

The  friends  of  Antony  in  Rome,  alarmed  by  the 
hostile  attitude  of  the  majority  of  the  public,  sent  a 
certain  Geminius  to  Athens  to  warn  their  leader  that 

1  Propertius.  Canopus  was  an  Egyptian  port  with  a  reputation  much  like 
that  once  held  by  the  modern  Port  Said.  Anubis  was  the  Egj-ptian  jackal- 
god,  connected  with  the  ritual  of  the  dead. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  319 


he  would  soon  be  proclaimed  an  enemy  of  the  State. 
On  his  arrival  at  the  headquarters,  he  was  thought  to 
be  an  agent  of  Octavia,  and  both  Cleopatra  and  Antony 
treated  him  with  considerable  coldness,  assigning  to 
him  the  least  important  place  at  their  banquets,  and 
making  him  a  continual  butt  for  their  most  biting  re- 
marks. For  some  time  he  bore  this  treatment  patiently ; 
but  at  length  one  night,  when  both  he  and  Antony  were 
somewhat  intoxicated,  the  latter  asked  him  point-blank 
what  was  his  business  at  Athens,  and  Geminius,  spring- 
ing to  his  feet,  replied  that  he  would  keep  that  until  a 
soberer  hour,  but  one  thing  he  would  say  here  and  now, 
drunk  or  sober,  that  if  only  the  Queen  would  go  back  to 
Egypt  all  would  be  well  with  their  cause.  At  this 
Antony  was  furious,  but  Cleopatra,  keeping  her  temper, 
said  in  her  most  scathing  manner:  "You  have  done 
well,  Geminius,  to  tell  your  secret  without  being  put  to 
torture."  A  day  or  two  later  he  slipped  away  from 
Athens  and  hurried  back  to  Rome. 

The  next  man  to  desert  was  Marcus  Silanus,  formerly 
an  officer  of  Julius  Caesar  in  Gaul,  who  also  carried  to 
Rome  stories  of  Cleopatra's  power  and  Antony's  weak- 
ness. [Shortly  after  this  Octavian  issued  a  formal  de- 
claration of  war,  not,  however,  against  Antony  but 
against  Cleopatra.  The  decree  deprived  Antony  of  his 
offices  and  his  authority,  because,  it  declared,  he  had 
allowed  a  woman  to  exercise  it  in  his  place.  Octavian 
added  that  Antony  had  evidently  drunk  potions  which 
had  bereft  him  of  his  senses,  and  that  the  generals 
against  whom  the  Romans  would  fight  would  be  the 
Egyptian    court  -  eunuchs,   Mardion    and   Potheinos  ;  ^ 

1  An  earlier  eunuch  of  the  same  name,  it  will  be  remembered,  played  an 
important  part  in  Cleopatra's  youth. 


320     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Cleopatra's  hair-dressing  girl,  Iras,  and  her  attendant, 
Charmion ;  for  these  nowadays  were  Antony's  chief 
state-councillors.  The  Queen  was  thus  made  to  realise 
that  her  husband's  cause  in  Rome  was  suffering  very 
seriously  from  her  presence  with  the  army ;  but,  at  the 
same  time,  were  she  now  to  return  to  Egypt  she  knew 
that  Antony  might  play  her  false,  and  the  fact  that  war 
had  not  been  declared  upon  him  but  upon  her  would 
give  him  an  easy  loophole  for  escape.  To  counteract 
the  prevailing  impression  in  Italy  Antony  despatched  a 
large  number  of  agents  who  were  to  attempt  to  turn 
popular  opinion  in  his  favour,  and  meanwhile  he  dis- 
posed his  army  for  the  final  struggle.  He  had  decided 
to  wait  for  Octavian  to  attack  him,  partly  because  he 
felt  confident  in  the  ability  of  his  great  fleet  to  destroy 
the  enemy  before  ever  it  could  land  on  the  shores  of 
Greece,  and  partly  because  he  believed  that  Octavian's 
forces  would  become  disaffected  long  before  they  could 
be  brought  across  the  sea.  The  state  of  war  would  be 
felt  in  Italy  very  soon,  whereas  in  Greece  and  Asia 
Minor  it  would  hardly  make  any  difference  to  the  price 
of  provisions.  Egypt  alone  would  supply  enough  corn 
to  feed  the  whole  army,  while  Italy  would  soon  starve ; 
and  Egypt  would  provide  money  for  the  regular  payment 
of  the  troops,  while  Octavian  did  not  know  where  to  turn 
for  cash.  Indeed,  so  great  was  the  distress  in  Italy,  and 
so  great  the  likelihood  of  mutinies  in  the  enemy's  army, 
that  Antony  did  not  expect  to  have  to  fight  a  big  battle 
on  land.  For  this  reason  he  had  felt  it  safe  to  leave  four 
of  his  legions  at  Cyrene,  four  in  Egj^pt,  and  three  in 
Syria ;  and  he  linked  up  the  whole  of  the  sea  coast 
around  the  eastern  Mediterranean  with  small  garrisons. 
The  army  which  he  kept  with  him  in  Greece  consisted 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  321 


of  some  100,000  foot  and  12,000  horse,  a  force  which 
must  certainly  have  seemed  adequate,  since  it  was 
greater  than  that  of  the  enemy.  Octavian  had  at  least 
250  ships  of  war,  80,000  foot,  and  12,000  horse. 

When  winter  approached  Cleopatra  and  Antony  ad- 
vanced with  the  whole  army  from  Athens  to  Patrae,  and 
there  went  into  winter  quarters.  Patrae  stood  near  the 
mouth  of  the  Gulf  of  Corinth,  on  the  Achaian  side,  not 
much  more  than  200  miles  from  the  Italian  coast.  The 
fleet,  meanwhile,  was  sent  farther  north  to  the  Gulf  of 
Ambracia,  which  formed  a  huge  natural  harbour  with  a 
narrow  entrance ;  and  outposts  were  placed  at  Corcyra, 
the  modern  Corfu,  some  70  miles  from  the  Italian  coast. 
In  the  period  of  waiting  which  followed,  when  the  storms 
of  winter  made  warfare  almost  out  of  the  question, 
Antony  and  Octavian  exchanged  several  pugnacious 
messages.  Octavian,  constrained  by  the  restlessness 
of  his  men  and  the  difficulty  of  providing  for  them 
during  the  winter,  is  said  to  have  written  to  Antony 
asking  him  not  to  protract  the  war,  but  to  come  over 
to  Italy  and  fight  him  at  once.  He  even  promised  not 
to  oppose  his  disembarkation,  but  to  offer  him  battle  only 
when  he  was  quite  prepared  to  meet  him  with  his  full 
forces.  Antony  replied  by  challenging  Octavian  to  a 
single  combat,  although,  as  he  stated,  he  was  already 
an  elderly  man.  This  challenge  Octavian  refused  to 
accept,  and  thereupon  Antony  invited  him  to  bring  his 
army  over  to  the  plains  to  Pharsalia  and  to  fight  him 
there,  where  Julius  Caesar  and  Pompey  had  fought  nearly 
seventeen  years  before.  This  offer  was  likewise  refused ; 
and  thereafter  the  two  huge  armies  settled  down  once 
more  to  glare  at  one  another  across  the  Ionian  Sea. 

Octavian  now  sent  a  message  to  Greece  inviting  the 

X 


322     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Roman  senators  who  were  still  with  Antony  to  return 
to  Rome  where  they  would  be  well  received ;  and  this 
offer  must  have  found  many  ready  ears,  though  none 
yet  dared  to  act  upon  it.  Several  of  these  senators  felt 
disgust  at  their  leader's  intemperate  habits,  and  were 
deeply  jealous  of  the  power  of  Cleopatra,  whose  influence 
did  not  seem  likely  to  serve  the  cause  of  the  Republic. 
The  declaring  of  war  against  the  Queen  and  not  against 
themselves  had  touched  them  sharply,  and  to  add  to 
their  discomfort  in  this  regard  news  now  came  across 
the  sea  that  Octavian,  in  making  his  official  sacrifices 
to  the  gods  at  the  opening  of  hostilities,  had  employed 
the  ritual  observed  before  a  campaign  against  a  foreign 
enemy.  He  had  stood,  as  the  ancient  rites  of  Rome 
prescribed,  before  the  temple  of  Bellona  in  the  Campus 
Martius,  and,  clad  in  the  robes  of  a  Fetial  priest,  had 
thrown  the  javelin,  as  a  declaration  that  war  was  under- 
taken against  an  alien  enemy. 

Now  came  disconcerting  rumours  from  the  Gulf  of 
Ambracia  which  could  not  be  kept  secret.  During 
the  winter  the  supplies  had  run  out,  and  all  manner 
of  diseases  had  attacked  the  rowing-slaves  and  sailors, 
the  result  being  that  nearly  a  third  of  their  number  had 
perished.  To  fill  their  places  Antony  had  ordered  his 
officers  to  press  into  service  every  man  on  whom  they 
could  lay  their  hands.  Peasants,  farm  hands,  harvesters, 
ploughboys,  donkey-drivers,  and  even  common  travellers 
had  been  seized  upon  and  thrust  into  the  ships,  but  still 
their  complements  were  incomplete,  and  many  of  them 
were  unfit  for  action.  The  news  caused  the  greatest 
anxiety  in  the  camp,  and  when,  in  March  b.c.  31,  the 
cessation  of  the  storms  of  winter  brought  the  opening  of 
actual  hostilities  close  at  hand,  there  was  many  a  man 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  323 


at  Patrae  who  wished  with  all  his  heart  that  he  were  safe 
in  his  own  country. 

The  first  blow  was  struck  by  Octavian,  who  sent  a 
flying  squadron  across  the  open  sea  to  the  south  coast 
of  Greece,  under  the  command  of  his  great  friend  Marcus 
Vipsanius  Agrippa.  This  force  seized  Methone,  and  ap- 
peared to  be  seeking  a  landing-place  for  the  main  army ; 
and  Antony  at  once  prepared  to  march  down  and  hold  the 
coast  against  the  expected  attack.  But  while  his  eyes 
were  turned  in  this  direction  Octavian  slipped  across 
with  his  army  from  Brindisi  and  Tarentum  to  Corcyra, 
and  thence  to  the  mainland,  marching  down  through 
Epirus  towards  the  Gulf  of  Ambracia,  thus  menacing 
the  ill-manned  fleet  lying  in  those  waters.  Antony  there- 
upon hastened  northwards  with  all  possible  speed,  and 
arrived  at  the  promontory  of  Actium,  which  formed  the 
southern  side  of  the  mouth  of  the  Gulf,  almost  at  the 
same  moment  at  which  Octavian  reached  the  opposite, 
or  northern,  promontory.  Realising  that  an  attack  was 
about  to  be  made  upon  the  fleet,  Antony  drew  his  ships 
up  in  battle  array,  manning  them  where  necessary  with 
legionaries ;  and  thereupon  Octavian  gave  up  the  project 
of  immediate  battle.  Antony  then  settled  himself  down 
on  his  southern  promontory  where  he  formed  an  enor- 
mous camp,  and  a  few  days  later  he  was  joined  there 
by  Cleopatra. 


324 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE  BATTLE  OF  ACTIUM  AND  THE  FLIGHT  TO  EGYPT. 

The  story  of  the  battle  of  Actiutn  has  troubled  historians 
of  all  periods,  and  no  one  has  been  able  to  offer  a  satis- 
factory explanation  of  the  startling  incidents  which 
occurred  in  it  or  of  the  events  which  led  up  to  them.  I 
am  not  able  to  accept  the  ingenious  theory  set  forward  by 
Ferrero,  nor  is  it  easy  to  agree  wholly  with  the  explana- 
tions given  by  classical  authors.  In  the  following  chapter 
I  relate  the  events  as  I  think  they  occurred,  but  of  course 
my  interpretation  is  open  to  question.  The  reader, 
however,  may  refer  to  the  early  authors  to  check  my 
statements ;  and  there  he  will  find,  as  no  doubt  he  has 
already  observed  in  other  parts  of  this  volume,  that  while 
the  incidents  and  facts  all  have  the  authority  of  these 
early  writers,  the  theories  which  explain  them,  represent- 
ing my  own  opinion,  are  frankly  open  to  discussion. 

For  the  time  being  Octavian  did  not  care  to  be  at  too 
close  quarters  to  Antony,  and  he  therefore  fortified  him- 
self in  a  position  a  few  miles  back  from  the  actual 
entrance  to  the  Gulf  of  Ambracia.  Antony  at  once 
shipped  a  part  of  his  army  across  from  Actium  to  the 
north  side  of  the  great  harbour's  mouth,  and  thus  placed 
himself  in  command  of  the  passage  into  the  inland  water. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  325 


Octavian  soon  threw  up  impregnable  earthworks  around 
his  camp,  and  built  a  wall  down  to  the  shore  of  the 
Ionian  Sea,  so  that  the  enemy  could  not  interfere  with 
the  landing  of  his  supplies,  all  of  which  had  to  come  from 
across  the  water.  He  stationed  his  ships  in  such  a  posi- 
tion that  they  could  command  the  entrance  to  the  Gulf 
of  Ambracia ;  and,  these  vessels  proving  to  be  extremely 
well  manned  and  handled,  Antony  soon  found  that  his 
own  fleet  was  actually  bottled  up  in  the  Gulf,  and  could 
not  pass  into  the  open  sea  without  fighting  every  inch  of 
the  passage  out  through  the  narrow  fairway.  Octavian 
was  thus  in  command  of  the  Ionian  Sea,  and  was  free  to 
receive  provisions  or  munitions  of  war  day  by  day  from 
Italy.  He  could  not,  however,  leave  his  fortified  camp, 
for  Antony  commanded  all  the  country  around  him. 
Thus,  while  Octavian  blockaded  Antony's  fleet  in  the 
Gulf,  Antony  besieged  Octavian's  army  in  their  camp  ; 
and  while  Octavian  commanded  the  open  sea  and  obtained 
his  supplies  freely  from  Italy,  Antony  commanded  the 
land  and  received  his  provisions  without  interruption 
from  Greece.  A  deadlock  therefore  ensued,  and  neither 
side  was  able  to  make  a  hostile  move.  It  seems  clear  to 
me  that  a  decisive  battle  could  only  be  brought  on  by 
one  of  two  manoeuvres :  either  Antony  must  retire  from 
Actium  and  induce  Octavian  to  come  after  him  into 
Greece,  or  else  his  fleet  must  fight  its  way  out  of  the 
Gulf  and  cut  off  Octavian's  supplies,  thus  starving  him  into 
surrender.  Many  of  Antony's  generals  were  of  opinion 
that  the  former  movement  should  be  undertaken,  and 
they  pressed  him  to  retire  and  thus  draw  Octavian  from 
his  stronghold.  Cleopatra,  however,  appears  to  have 
been  in  favour  of  breaking  the  blockade  and  regaining 
possession  of  the  sea.   She  may  have  considered  Antony's 


326     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


army  to  be  composed  of  too  many  nationalities  to  make 
success  on  land  absolutely  assured,  and  any  retreat  at 
this  moment  might  easily  be  misinterpreted  and  might 
lead  to  desertions.  On  the  other  hand,  she  had  confidence 
in  her  Egyptian  fleet  and  in  Antony's  own  ships,  if,  by 
cutting  down  their  number,  their  crews  could  be  brought 
up  to  the  full  complement ;  and  she  believed  that  with, 
say,  300  vessels  Octavian's  blockade  could  be  forced,  and 
his  own  position  subjected  to  the  same  treatment.  I 
gather  that  this  plan,  however,  was  hotly  opposed  by 
Domitius  Ahenobarbus  and  others ;  and,  since  a  loss  of 
time  was  not  likely  to  alter  the  situation  to  their  dis- 
advantage, no  movement  was  yet  made. 

Some  time  in  June  Antony  sent  a  squadron  of  cavalry 
round  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  to  try  to  cut  off  Octavian's 
water-supply,  but  the  move  was  not  attended  with  much 
success  and  was  abandoned.  Shortly  after  this  the 
deserter  Titius  defeated  a  small  body  of  Antony's  cavalry, 
and  Agrippa  captured  a  few  of  his  ships  which  had',  been 
cruising  from  stations  outside  the  Gulf ;  whereupon 
Octovian  sent  despatches  to  Rome  announcing  these 
successes  as  important  victories,  and  stating  that  he  had 
trapped  Antony's  fleet  within  the  Gulf.  He  also  sent 
agents  into  Greece  to  try  to  shake  the  confidence  of  the 
inhabitants  in  his  enemy,  and  these  men  appear  to  have 
been  partially  successful  in  their  endeavours. 

These  small  victories  of  Octavian  seem  to  have 
unnerved  Antony,  and  to  have  had  a  dispiriting  effect 
upon  the  army.  Cleopatra,  too,  must  have  been  par- 
ticularly depressed  by  them,  for  they  seemed  to  be  a 
confirmation  of  the  several  ominous  and  inauspicious 
occurrences  which  had  recently  taken  place.  An  Egyptian 
soothsayer  had  once  told  Antony  that  his  genius  would 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  327 


go  down  before  that  of  Octavian ;  and  Cleopatra,  having 
watched  her  husband's  rapid  deterioration  in  the  last  two 
years,  now  feared  that  the  man's  words  were  indeed 
true.  News  had  lately  come  from  Athens  that  a  violent 
hurricane  had  torn  down  the  statue  of  Bacchus,  the  god 
whom  Antony  impersonated,  from  a  group  representing 
the  Battle  of  the  Giants ;  and  two  colossal  statues  of 
Fumenes  and  Attalus,  each  of  which  was  inscribed  with 
Antony's  name,  had  also  been  knocked  over  during  the 
same  cyclone.  This  news  recalled  the  fact  that  a  few 
months  previously  at  Patrae  the  temple  of  Hercules,  the 
ancestor  of  Antony,  had  been  struck  by  lightning ;  and  at 
about  the  same  time  a  small  township  founded  by  him 
at  Pisaurum,  on  the  east  coast  of  Italy,  north  of  Ancona, 
had  been  destroyed  by  an  earthquake.  These  and  other 
ill-omened  accidents  had  a  very  depressing  effect  on 
Cleopatra's  spirits,  and  her  constant  quarrels  with  Antony 
and  his  generals  seem  to  have  caused  her  to  be  in  a  state 
of  great  nervous  tension.  Towards  the  end  of  July  or 
early  in  August,  when  the  low-lying  ground  on  which 
their  camp  was  pitched  became  infested  with  mosquitos, 
and  when  the  damp  heat  of  summer  had  set  the  tempers 
of  everybody  on  edge,  the  quarrels  in  regard  to  the 
conduct  of  the  campaign  broke  out  with  renewed  fury. 
Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  Dellius,  Amyntas,  and  others, 
again  urged  Antony  to  retire  inland  and  to  fight  a  pitched 
battle  with  Octavian  as  soon  as  he  should  come  after 
them.  Cleopatra,  however,  still  appears  to  have  con- 
sidered that  the  forcing  of  the  blockade  was  the  most 
important  operation  to  be  undertaken,  and  this  she  urged 
upon  her  undecided  husband.  It  was  of  course  a  risky 
undertaking,  but  by  reason  of  the  very  danger  it  made  a 
strong  appeal  to  Cleopatra's  mind.    If  their  fleet  could 


328     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


destroy  that  of  Octavian,  they  would  have  him  caught  in 
his  stronghold  as  in  a  trap.  They  would  not  even  have 
to  wait  for  the  surrender ;  but,  leaving  eighty  or  a  hundred 
thousand  men  to  prevent  his  escape,  they  might  sail  over 
to  Italy  with  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  legionaries  and 
take  possession  of  empty  Rome.  There  was  not  a  senator 
nor  a  military  force  in  the  capital,  for  Octavian  had  lately 
made  the  entire  senate  in  Rome  come  over  to  his  camp,  in 
order  to  give  tone  to  his  proceedings ;  and,  when  once 
Octavian's  sea-power  had  been  destroyed,  Antony  and 
Cleopatra  would  be  free  to  ride  unchecked  into  Rome 
while  the  enemy  was  starved  into  surrender  in  Greece. 
A  single  naval  battle,  and  Rome  would  be  theirs  !  This, 
surely,  was  better  than  a  slow  and  ponderous  retreat  into 
the  interior. 

Antony,  however,  could  not  persuade  his  generals  to 
agree  to  this.  The  risk  was  great,  they  seem  to  have 
argued  ;  and  even  if  they  were  victorious,  was  he  going 
to  march  into  Rome  with  Cleopatra  by  his  side  ?  The 
citizens  would  never  stand  it,  after  the  stories  they  had 
heard  in  regard  to  the  Queen's  magical  power  over  him. 
Let  her  go  back  to  Egypt,  nor  any  longer  remain  to 
undermine  Antony's  popularity.  How  could  he  appear 
to  the  world  as  a  good  republican  with  royal  Cleopatra's 
arm  linked  in  his?  By  abandoning  the  idea  of  a  naval 
battle  the  Egyptian  fleet  could  be  dispensed  with,  and 
could  be  allowed  to  depart  to  Egypt  if  it  succeeded  in 
running  the  blockade.  Cleopatra  had  supplied  ships  but 
hardly  any  soldiers,  and  a  land  battle  could  be  fought 
without  her  aid,  and  therefore  without  cause  for  criticism ; 
nor  would  Octavian  any  longer  be  able  to  say  that  he  was 
waging  war  against  Cleopatra  and  not  against  Antony. 
The  money  which  she  had  supplied  for  the  campaign  was 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  329 


almost  exhausted,  and  thus  she  was  of  no  further  use  to 
the  cause.  Let  Antony  then  give  up  the  projected  naval 
battle,  and  order  the  Queen  to  go  back  quickly  with  her 
ships  to  her  own  country :  for  thus,  and  thus  only,  could 
the  disaffected  republican  element  in  their  army  be  brought 
into  line.  Cleopatra,  they  said,  had  been  the  moving 
spirit  in  the  war;  Cleopatra  had  supplied  the  money; 
it  was  against  Cleopatra  that  Octavian  had  declared 
war;  it  was  Cleopatra's  name,  and  the  false  stories 
regarding  her,  which  had  aroused  Rome  to  Octavian's 
support ;  it  was  Cleopatra  who  was  now  said  on  all 
sides  to  be  supreme  in  command  of  the  whole  army ; 
and  it  was  of  Cleopatra  that  every  senator,  every  vassal 
king,  and  every  general,  was  furiously  jealous.  Unless 
she  were  made  to  go,  the  whole  cause  was  lost. 

Antony  seems  to  have  realised  the  justice  of  these 
arguments,  and  to  have  promised  to  try  to  persuade  his 
wife  to  retire  to  Egypt  to  await  the  outcome  of  the 
war ;  and  he  was  further  strengthened  in  this  resolve 
when  even  Canidius,  who  had  all  along  favoured  the 
keeping  of  Cleopatra  with  the  army,  now  urged  him 
to  ask  her  to  leave  them  to  fight  their  own  battle.  He 
therefore  told  the  Queen,  it  would  seem,  that  he  desired 
her  to  go,  pointing  out  that  in  this  way  alone  could 
victory  be  secured. 

Cleopatra,  I  take  it,  was  furious.  She  did  not  trust 
Antony,  and  she  appears  to  have  been  very  doubtful 
whether  he  would  still  champion  her  cause  after  victory. 
She  even  doubted  that  he  would  be  victorious.  He  was 
now  but  the  wreck  of  the  man  he  had  once  been,  for  a 
too  lifelike  impersonation  of  the  god  Bacchus  had  played 
havoc  with  his  nerves  and  with  his  character.  He  had 
no  longer  the  strength  and  the  determination  necessary 


330     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


for  the  founding  of  an  imperial  throne  in  Rome ;  and 
she  felt  that,  even  if  he  were  successful  in  arms  against 
Octavian,  he  would  make  but  a  poor  regent  for  her  son 
Cassarion.  Having  used  her  money  and  her  ships  for 
his  war,  he  might  abandon  her  cause ;  and  the  fact  that 
they  were  fighting  for  Caesar's  son  and  heir,  which  had 
already  been  placed  in  the  background,  might  be  for 
ever  banished.  It  must  have  seemed  madness  for  her 
to  leave  her  husband  at  this  critical  juncture.  In  order 
to  prevent  further  desertions  he  would  probably  proclaim 
his  republican  principles  as  soon  as  her  back  was  turned ; 
and,  in  his  drunken  weakness,  he  might  commit  himself 
so  deeply  that  he  would  never  be  able  to  go  back  upon 
his  democratic  promises.  Since  she  was  unpopular  with 
his  generals,  he  would  perhaps  at  once  tell  them  that 
she  was  nothing  to  him  ;  and  for  the  sake  of  assuring 
victory  he  might  even  divorce  her.  Of  course,  it  was 
obvious  that  he  was  devoted  to  her,  and  relied  on  her 
in  all  matters,  seeming  to  be  utterly  lost  without  her ; 
but,  for  all  she  knew,  his  ambition  might  be  stronger 
than  his  love.  She  therefore  refused  absolutely  to  go ; 
and  Antony  was  too  kind-hearted,  and  perhaps  too  much 
afraid  of  her  anger,  to  press  the  matter. 

His  talk  with  her,  however,  seems  to  have  decided  him 
to  break  the  blockade  as  soon  as  possible,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  invest  Octavian's  lines  so  that  he  could 
not  escape  from  the  stronghold  which  would  become  his 
death-trap.  Once  master  of  the  sea,  he  would,  at  any 
rate,  have  opened  a  path  for  Cleopatra's  departure,  and 
she  could  retire  unmolested  with  her  fleet  to  her  own 
country.  He  therefore  hurried  on  the  manning  of  his 
ships,  and  at  the  same  time  sent  DeUius  and  Amyntas 
into  Thrace  to  recruit  a  force  of  cavalry  to  supplement 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  331 


those  at  his  disposal.  Cleopatra  pointed  out  to  him  that 
the  ground  upon  which  their  camp  was  pitched  at  Actium 
was  extremely  unhealthy,  and  if  they  remained  there 
much  longer  the  troops  would  be  decimated  by  malaria ; 
and  she  seems  perhaps  to  have  urged  him  to  move  round 
to  the  north  of  the  Gulf  of  Ambracia,  in  order  both  to 
obtain  more  healthy  conditions  for  the  army  and  to 
invest  more  closely  the  camp  of  Octavian  in  preparation 
for  the  naval  fight.  Domitius  Ahenobarbus  was  still 
hotly  opposed  to  this  fight ;  and  now,  finding  that  not 
only  was  Cleopatra  to  be  allowed  to  remain  with  the 
army,  but  also  that  her  plan  of  breaking  the  blockade 
was  to  be  adopted,  instead  of  that  of  the  retreat  inland, 
he  was  deeply  incensed,  and  could  no  longer  bear  to 
remain  in  the  same  camp  with  the  Queen.  Going  on 
board  a  vessel,  therefore,  as  he  said,  for  the  sake  of  his 
health,  he  slipped  over  to  Octavian's  lines  and  offered 
his  services  to  the  enemy.  He  did  not  live,  however, 
to  enjoy  the  favourable  consequences  of  his  change,  for, 
having  contracted  a  fever  while  at  Actium,  he  died 
before  the  battle  of  that  name  was  fought. 

This  desertion,  which  occurred  probably  early  in 
August,  came  as  a  terrible  shock  to  Antony,  and  he 
seems  to  have  accused  his  wife  of  being  the  cause  of 
it,  which  undoubtedly  she  was.  This  time  he  insisted 
more  vehemently  on  her  leaving  the  army  and  retiring 
to  Egypt ;  and  thereupon  a  violent  quarrel  ensued,  which 
lasted,  I  think,  without  cessation  during  the  remainder 
of  their  stay  in  Greece.  At  first,  it  seems  to  me,  the 
Queen  positively  refused  to  leave  him,  and  she  probably 
accused  him  of  wishing  to  abandon  her  cause.  With 
a  sneer,  she  may  have  reminded  him  that  his  compact 
with  her,  and  his  arrangements  for  an  Egypto-Roman 


332     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


monarchy,  were  made  at  a  time  when  he  had,  to  a  great 
extent,  cut  himself  off  from  Rome  and  when  he  required 
financial  aid;  but  now  he  had  four  hundred  respectable 
republican  senators  to  influence  him,  and,  no  doubt, 
their  support  at  this  juncture  was  far  more  valuable  to 
him  than  her  own.  He  had  deserted  her  once 
before,  and  she  was  quite  prepared  for  him  to  do 
so  again. 

Her  anger,  mistrust,  and  unhappiness  must  have 
distressed  Antony  deeply,  and  he  would,  perhaps,  have 
given  way  once  again  had  not  three  more  desertions 
from  his  camp  taken  place.  The  King  of  Paphlagonia, 
jealous,  apparently,  of  Cleopatra's  power,  slipped  across 
to  Octavian's  lines,  carrying  thither  an  account  of  the 
dissensions  in  Antony's  camp.  The  two  others,  a  Roman 
senator  named  Quintus  Postumius,  and  an  Arab  chieftain 
from  Emesa,  named  lamblichus,  were  both  caught;  and, 
to  terrify  those  who  might  intend  to  go  over  to  the 
enemy,  both  were  put  to  death,  the  one  being  torn  to 
pieces  and  the  other  tortured.  Every  day  Octavian's 
cause  was  growing  in  popularity,  and  Antony  was  being 
subjected  to  greater  ridicule  for  his  subserviency  to  the 
little  Queen  of  Egypt,  who  appeared  to  direct  all  his 
councils  and  who  now  seemed  to  frighten  him  by  her 
anger.  Octavian's  men  were  becoming  self-confident  and 
even  audacious.  On  one  occasion  while  Antony,  accom- 
panied by  an  officer,  was  walking  at  night  down  to  the 
harbour  between  the  two  ramparts  which  he  had  thrown 
up  to  guard  the  road,  some  of  the  enemy's  men  crept 
over  the  wall  and  laid  in  wait  for  him.  As  they  sprang 
up  from  their  ambush,  however,  they  seized  Antony's 
attendant  officer  in  mistake  for  himself,  and,  by  a  rapid 
flight  down  the  road,  he  was  able  to  escape. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  333 


Thoroughly  unnerved  by  the  course  events  were  taking, 
he  again  ordered  the  Queen  to  retire  to  Egypt ;  and  at 
last,  stung  by  Antony's  reproaches,  Cleopatra  made  up 
her  mind  to  go  and  to  take  her  fleet  with  her.  Having 
formed  this  decision,  she  appears  to  have  treated  Antony 
with  the  utmost  hostility;  and  he,  being  in  a  highly 
nervous  condition,  began  to  fear  that  she  might  kill 
him.  Her  great  eyes  seemed  to  blaze  with  anger  when 
she  looked  upon  him,  and  the  contempt  which  she  now 
felt  for  him  was  shown  in  the  expression  of  her  face. 
He  appears  to  have  cowered  before  her  in  the  manner 
of  a  naughty  boy,  and  to  have  told  his  friends  that  he 
believed  she  would  murder  him  in  her  wrath.  On  hear- 
ing this,  Cleopatra  decided  to  teach  him  a  lesson  which 
he  should  not  forget.  One  night  at  supper,  she  caused 
her  goblet  to  be  filled  from  the  same  wine -jar  from 
which  all  had  been  drinking,  and  having  herself  drunk 
some  of  the  wine,  she  handed  the  cup  to  Antony  as 
though  in  token  of  reconciliation  ;  and  he,  eagerly  raising 
it  to  his  mouth,  was  about  to  place  his  lips  where  those 
of  the  Queen  had  rested  a  moment  before,  when,  as 
though  to  add  grace  to  her  act,  she  took  the  wreath 
of  flowers  from  her  hair  and  dipped  it  into  the  wine. 
Antony  again  lifted  the  cup,  but  suddenly  Cleopatra 
dashed  it  from  his  hand,  telling  him  that  the  wine  was 
poisoned.  Antony  appears  to  have  protested  that  she 
was  mistaken,  since  she  herself  had  just  drunk  from  the 
same  cup ;  but  Cleopatra  calmly  explained  that  the 
wreath  which  she  had  dipped  into  the  wine  as  she 
handed  it  to  him  was  poisoned,  and  that  she  had  chosen 
this  means  of  showing  him  how  baseless  were  his  fears 
for  his  life,  for  that,  did  she  wish  to  rid  herself  of  him, 
she  could  do  so  at  any  moment  by  some  such  subtle 


334     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


means.  "  I  could  have  killed  you  at  any  time,"  she 
said,  "if  I  could  have  done  without  you." 

The  Queen,  I  imagine,  now  carried  herself  verj'  proudly 
and  disdainfully,  regarding  Antony's  insistence  on  her 
departure  as  a  breach  of  faith.  In  her  own  mind  she 
must  have  feared  lest  he  would  actually  abandon  her, 
and  the  anxiety  in  regard  to  the  future  of  her  country 
and  dynasty  must  have  gnawed  at  her  heart  all  day 
and  all  night ;  but  to  him  she  seems  only  to  have  shown 
coldness  and  contempt,  thus  driving  him  to  a  condition 
of  complete  wretchedness.  He  did  not  dare,  however, 
to  alter  his  decision  in  regard  to  her  departure,  for  he 
seems  to  have  admitted  some  of  his  senators  and  generals 
into  the  secret  of  this  coming  event,  and  it  had  much 
quieted  the  volcanic  atmosphere  so  long  prevalent  in  the 
camp.  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  plan  upon  which  he  and 
his  wife  had  agreed  was  as  follows :  Having  invested 
Octavian's  lines  more  closely,  and  having  taken  all  steps 
to  prevent  him  issuing  from  his  stronghold,  the  pick  of 
Antony's  legionaries  would  be  embarked  upon  as  many  of 
the  vessels  in  the  Gulf  of  Ambracia  as  were  seaworthy, 
and  these  warships  would  force  their  way  out  and  destroy 
Octavian's  fleet.  As  soon  as  this  was  done  an  assault 
would  be  made  on  the  enemy's  position  by  sea  and  land ; 
and  Cleopatra,  taking  with  her  the  Egyptian  fleet,  could 
then  sail  away  to  Alexandria,  leaving  Antony  to  enter 
Rome  alone. 

This  scheme,  in  my  opinion,  presented  the  only  pos- 
sible means  by  which  the  Antonian  army  could  rid  itself 
of  Egyptian  influence.  If  Cleopatra  was  made  to  retire 
overland  by  way  of  Asia  Minor  and  Syria,  not  only  would 
her  passage  through  these  countries  be  regarded  by  the 
inhabitants  as  a  flight,  thus  causing  instant  panic  and 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  335 


revolt,  but  also  the  Egyptian  fleet  would  still  remain 
in  the  Gulf  of  Ambracia  to  show  by  its  presence  that 
Cleopatra  and  her  Kingdom  of  Egypt  were  yet  the  main 
factors  in  the  war.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Queen 
retired  by  sea  with  her  ships,  a  naval  battle  designed  to 
force  the  blockade  would  have  to  be  fought  in  order 
to  permit  her  to  escape  by  that  route.  Thus,  the  repub- 
lican demand  that  the  Queen  should  go  to  her  own 
country,  and  Cleopatra's  own  reiterated  proposal  that 
the  war  should  be  decided  by  a  sea-fight,  here  concurred 
in  determining  Antony  to  stake  all  upon  a  naval  en- 
gagement. 

This  being  settled,  Antony  announced  to  the  army 
that  the  fleet  should  break  the  blockade  on  August  29, 
but  the  fact  that  the  Egyptian  ships  were  to  depart  im- 
mediately after  the  battle  was  not  made  known,  save  to  a 
few.  A  great  many  of  the  vessels  were  ill  furnished  for 
the  fight,  and  were  much  under-manned;  and  Antony 
now  ordered  these  to  be  burnt,  for,  though  they  were 
useless  to  him,  they  might  be  of  value  to  the  enemy, 
and  might  be  seized  by  them  while  the  fleet  was  away 
scouring  the  Ionian  Sea.  Sixty  of  the  best  Egyptian 
vessels,  and  at  least  three  hundred^  other  ships,  were 
made  ready  for  the  contest ;  and  during  these  prepara- 
tions it  was  no  easy  matter  to  keep  the  secret  of  the 
Egyptian  departure  from  leaking  out.  In  order  to  cross 
to  Egypt  Cleopatra's  sixty  ships  required  their  large  sails, 
but  these  sails  would  not  under  ordinary  circumstances 
be  taken  into  battle ;  and  in  order  that  the  Egyptian 
vessels  should  not  be  made  conspicuous  by  alone  pre- 
paring for  a  long  voyage,  thereby  causing  suspicions  to 

^  The  numbers  given  by  the  early  authors  are  very  contradictory,  but 
Plutarch  states  that  Octavian  reported  the  capture  of  three  hundred  ships. 


336     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


arise,  all  the  fleet  was  ordered  to  ship  its  big  sails ; 
Antony,  therefore,  having  to  explain  that  they  would 
be  required  in  the  pursuit  of  the  enemy.  Another  diffi- 
culty arose  from  the  fact  that  Cleopatra  had  to  ship 
her  baggage,  including  her  plate  and  jewels ;  but  this 
was  ultimately  done  under  cover  of  darkness  without 
arousing  suspicion. 

Many  of  the  generals,  not  realising  that  the  naval 
battle  was  largely  forced  upon  Antony  by  those  who 
desired  to  rid  his  party  of  the  Egyptians,  were  much 
opposed  to  the  scheme ;  and  one  infantry  officer,  pointing 
to  the  many  scars  and  marks  of  wounds  which  his  body 
bore,  implored  Antony  to  fight  upon  land.  "  O  Gen- 
eral," he  said,  "  what  have  our  wounds  and  our  swords 
done  to  displease  you,  that  you  should  give  your  con- 
fidence to  rotten  timbers  ?  Let  Egyptians  and  Phoeni- 
cians fight  on  the  sea ;  but  give  us  the  land,  where  we 
well  know  how  to  die  where  we  stand  or  else  gain  the 
victory."  Antony,  however,  gave  him  no  reply,  but 
made  a  motion  with  his  hand  as  though  to  bid  him 
be  of  good  courage. 

On  August  28  twenty  thousand  legionaries  and  two 
thousand  archers  were  embarked  upon  the  ships  of 
war^  in  preparation  for  the  morrow's  battle.  The  vessels 
were  much  larger  than  those  of  Octavian,  some  of  them 
having  as  many  as  ten  banks  of  oars ;  and  it  seemed 
likely  that  victory  would  be  on  their  side.  On  the  next 
day,  however,  the  sea  was  extremely  rough,  and  the 
battle  had  to  be  postponed.  The  storm  proved  to  be 
of  great  violence,  and  all  question  of  breaking  the  block- 
ade had  to  be  abandoned  for  the  next  four  days.  The 

1  Not  upon  the  sixty  Eg)-ptian  ships,  as  Plutarch  states  :  tliat  is  an  evident 
mistake,  as  the  proportion  of  numbers  per  ship  will  at  once  show. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  337 


delay  was  found  to  be  a  very  heavy  strain  upon  the  nerves 
of  all  concerned,  and  so  great  was  the  anxiety  of  the  two 
important  generals,  Dellius  ^  and  Amyntas,  that  they  both 
deserted  to  Octavian's  lines,  the  latter  taking  with  him 
two  thousand  Galatian  cavalry.  Dellius  had  probably 
heard  rumours  about  the  proposed  departure  of  Cleo- 
patra, and  he  was  able  to  tell  Octavian  something  of  the 
plans  for  the  battle.  In  after  years  he  stated  that  his 
desertion  was  partly  due  to  his  fear  of  the  Queen,  for 
he  believed  her  to  be  angry  with  him  for  having  once 
remarked  that  Antony's  friends  were  served  with  sour 
wine,  whereas  even  Sarmentus,  Octavian's  delicia,  or 
page,  drank  Falernian.  One  may  understand  Cleo- 
patra's annoyance  at  this  hint  that  money  and  supplies 
were  running  short,  more  especially  since  this  must 
actually  have  been  the  fact. 

On  September  ist  the  storm  abated,  and  in  the 
evening  Antony  went  from  ship  to  ship  encouraging  his 
men.  Octavian,  informed  by  Dellius,  also  prepared 
for  battle,  embarking  eight  legions  and  five  pretorian 
cohorts  upon  his  ships  of  war,  which  seem  to  have  been 
more  numerous,  but  much  smaller,  than  those  of  Antony, 

The  morning  of  September  2nd  was  calm,  and  at  an 
early  hour  Octavian's  workmanlike  ships  stationed  them- 
selves about  three-quarters  of  a  mile  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Gulf  of  Ambracia,  where  they  were  watched  by 
the  eyes  of  both  armies.  They  were  formed  into  three 
divisions,  the  left  wing  being  commanded  by  Agrippa, 
the  centre  by  Lucius  Arruntius,  and  the  right  wing  by 
Octavian.  At  about  noon  Antony's  huge  men-o'-war 
began  to  pass  out  from  the  harbour,  under  cover  of  the 

^  The  fact  that  Dellius  knew  something  of  the  plans  for  the  battle  fixes  the 
date  of  his  desertion  to  this  period,  as  Ferrero  has  pointed  out. 

Y 


338     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


troops  and  engines  of  war  stationed  upon  the  two  pro- 
montories. Octavian  seems  to  have  thought  that  it 
would  be  difficult  to  attack  them  in  the  straits,  and 
therefore  he  retired  out  to  sea,  giving  his  enemies  the 
opportunity  of  forming  up  for  battle.  This  was  speedily 
done,  the  fleet  being  divided,  like  Octavian's,  into  three 
squadrons,  C.  Sossius  moving  against  Octavian,  Marcus 
Insteius  opposing  Arruntius,  and  Antony  facing  Agrippa. 
The  sixty  Egyptian  ships,  under  Cleopatra's  command, 
were  the  last  to  leave  the  Gulf,  and  formed  up  behind 
the  central  division. 

Antony  appears  to  have  arranged  with  Cleopatra  that 
her  ships  should  give  him  full  assistance  in  the  fight,  and 
should  sail  for  Egypt  as  soon  as  the  victory  was  won. 
He  intended,  no  doubt,  to  board  her  flagship  at  the 
close  of  the  battle  and  to  bid  her  farewell.  They  had 
separated  that  morning,  it  would  seem  from  subsequent 
events,  with  anger  and  bitterness.  Cleopatra,  I  imagine, 
had  once  more  told  him  how  distasteful  was  her  coming 
departure  to  her,  and  had  shown  him  how  little  she 
trusted  him.  She  had  bewailed  the  misery  of  her  life 
and  the  bitterness  of  her  disillusionment.  She  had 
accused  him  of  wishing  to  abandon  her  cause,  and  she 
had,  no  doubt,  called  him  coward  and  traitor.  Very 
possibly  in  her  anger  she  had  told  him  that  she  was 
leaving  him  with  delight,  having  found  him  wholly 
degenerate,  and  that  she  hoped  never  to  see  his  face 
again.  Her  accusations,  I  fancy,  had  stung  Antony  to 
bitter  retorts ;  and  they  had  departed,  each  to  their  own 
flagship,  with  cruel  words  upon  their  lips  and  fury  in 
their  minds.  Antony's  nature,  however,  always  boyish, 
impulsive,  and  quickly  repentant,  could  not  bear  with 
equanimity  so  painful  a  scene  with  the  woman  to  whom 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  339 


he  was  really  devoted,  and  as  he  passed  out  to  battle 
he  must  have  been  consumed  by  the  desire  to  ask  her 
forgiveness.  The  thought,  if  I  understand  him  aright, 
was  awful  to  him  that  they  should  thus  separate  in 
anger ;  and  being  probably  a  little  intoxicated,  the  con- 
templation of  his  coming  loneliness  reduced  him  almost 
to  tears.  He  was  perhaps  a  little  cheered  by  the  thought 
that  when  next  he  saw  her  the  battle  would  probably 
be  won,  and  he  would  appear  to  her  in  the  role  of  con- 
queror—  a  theatrical  situation  which  made  an  appeal 
to  his  dramatic  instincts ;  yet,  in  the  meantime,  I  think 
he  was  as  miserable  as  any  young  lover  who  had 
quarrelled  with  his  sweetheart. 

The  battle  was  opened  by  the  advance  of  Antony's 
left  wing,  and  Agrippa's  attempt  to  outflank  it  with  his 
right.  Antony's  other  divisions  then  moved  forward, 
and  the  fight  became  general.  "  When  they  engaged," 
writes  Plutarch,  "  there  was  no  ramming  or  charging 
of  one  ship  into  another,  because  Antony's  vessels,  by 
reason  of  their  great  bulk,  were  incapable  of  the  speed 
to  make  the  stroke  effectual,  and,  on  the  other  side, 
Octavian's  ships  dared  not  charge,  prow  to  prow,  into 
Antony's,  which  were  all  armed  with  solid  masses  and 
spikes  of  brass,  nor  did  they  care  even  to  run  in  on  their 
sides,  which  were  so  strongly  built  with  great  squared 
pieces  of  timber,  fastened  together  with  iron  bolts,  that 
their  own  vessels'  bows  would  certainly  have  been 
shattered  upon  them.  Thus  the  engagement  resembled 
a  land  fight,  or,  to  speak  more  properly,  the  assault  and 
defence  of  a  fortified  place ;  for  there  were  always  three 
or  four  of  Octavian's  vessels  around  each  one  of  Antony's, 
pressing  upon  them  with  spears,  javelins,  poles,  and 
several  inventions  of  fire  which  they  flung  into  them, 


340     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Antony's  men  using  catapults  also  to  hurl  down  missiles 
from  their  wooden  towers." 

The  fight  raged  for  three  or  four  hours,  but  gradually 
the  awful  truth  was  borne  in  upon  Antony  and  Cleopatra, 
that   Octavian's  little   ships  were  winning    the  day. 
Antony's  flagship  was  so  closely  hemmed  in  on  all  sides 
that  he  himself  was  kept  busily  occupied,  and  he  had  no 
time  to  think  clearly.     But  as,  one  by  one,  his  ships 
were  fired,  sunk,  or  captured,  his  desperation  seems  to 
have  become  more  acute.    If  his  fleet  were  defeated  and 
destroyed,  would  his  army  stand  firm  ?    That  was  the 
question  which  must  have  drummed  in  his  head,  as  in 
an  agony  of  apprehension  he  watched  the  confused 
battle  and  listened  to  the  clash  of  arms  and  the  cries 
and  shouts  of  the  combatants.    Cleopatra,  meanwhile, 
after  being  subjected  to  much  battering  by  the  enemy, 
had  perhaps  freed  her  flagship  for  a  moment  from  the 
attentions  of  Octavian's  little  warships,  and,  in  manoeu- 
vring for  a  better  position,  she  was  able  to  obtain  a  full 
view  of  the  situation.    With  growing  horror  she  observed 
the  struggle  around  Antony's  flagship,  and  heard  the 
cheers  of  the  enemy  as  some  huge  vessel  struck  or  was 
set  on  fire.    Her  Egyptian  fleet  had  probably  suffered 
heavily,  though  her  sailors  would  hardly  have  fought 
with  the  same  audacity  as  had  those  under  Antony's 
command.  As  she  surveyed  the  appalling  scene  no  doubt 
remained  in  her  mind  that  Octavian  had  beaten  them, 
and  she  must  even  have  feared  that  Antony  would  be 
killed  or  captured.    The  anxieties  which  had  harassed 
her  overwrought  brain  during  the  last  few  weeks  as  to 
her  husband's  intentions  in  regard  to  her  position  and 
that  of  her  son  Caesarion,  were  now  displaced  by  the 
more  frightful  thought  that  the  opportunity  would  never 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  341 


be  given  to  him  of  proving  his  constancy ;  for,  here  and 
now,  he  would  meet  his  end.  Her  anger  against  him 
for  his  vacillation,  her  contempt  for  the  increasing 
weakness  of  his  character,  and  her  misgivings  in  regard 
to  his  ability  to  direct  his  forces  in  view  of  the  growing 
intemperance  of  his  habits,  were  now  combined  in  the 
one  staggering  certainty  that  defeat  and  ruin  awaited 
him.  He  had  told  her  to  go  back  to  Egypt,  he  had 
ordered  her  to  take  herself  off  with  her  fleet  at  the  end 
of  the  battle.  That  end  seemed  to  her  already  in  sight. 
It  was  not  from  a  riotous  scene  of  victory,  however,  that 
she  was  to  retire,  nor  was  she  to  carry  over  to  Alexandria 
the  tidings  of  her  triumph  with  which  to  cover  the  shame 
of  her  banishment  from  her  husband's  side ;  but  now  she 
would  have  to  sail  away  from  the  spectacle  of  the  wreck 
of  their  cause,  and  free  herself  by  flight  from  a  man  who, 
no  longer  a  champion  of  her  rights,  had  become  an 
encumbrance  to  the  movement  of  her  ambitions. 

In  the  late  afternoon,  while  yet  the  victory  was 
actually  undecided,  although  there  could  have  been  no 
hope  for  the  Antonian  party  left  in  Cleopatra's  weary 
mind,  a  strong  wind  from  the  north  sprang  up,  blowing 
straight  from  unconquered  Rome  towards  distant  Egypt. 
The  sea  grew  rough,  and  the  waves  beat  against  the 
sides  of  the  Queen's  flagship,  causing  an  increase  of 
confusion  in  the  battle.  As  the  wind  blew  in  her  face, 
suddenly,  it  seems  to  me,  the  thought  came  to  her  that 
the  moment  had  arrived  for  her  departure.  Antony  had 
told  her  with  furious  words  to  go :  why,  then,  should  she 
wait  ?  In  another  hour,  probably,  he  would  be  captured 
or  killed,  and  she,  too,  would  be  taken  prisoner,  to  be 
marched  in  degradation  to  the  Capitol  whereon  she  had 
hoped  to  sit  enthroned.    She  would  pay  her  husband 


342     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


back  in  his  own  coin  :  she  would  desert  him  as  he  had 
deserted  her.  She  would  not  stand  by  him  to  await  an 
immediate  downfall.  Though  he  was  sodden  with  wine, 
she  herself  was  still  full  of  life.  She  would  rise  above 
her  troubles,  as  she  had  always  risen  before.  She  would 
cast  him  off,  and  begin  her  Hfe  once  more.  Her  throne 
should  not  be  taken  from  her  at  one  blow.  She  would,  at 
this  moment,  obey  Antony's  command  and  go ;  and  in 
distant  Egypt  she  would  endeavour  to  start  again  in  the 
pursuit  of  that  dynastic  security  which  had  proved  so 
intangible  a  vision. 

Having  arrived  at  this  decision  she  ordered  the  signal 
to  be  given  to  her  scattered  ships,  and  hoisting  sail  she 
passed  right  through  the  combatants,  and  made  off  down 
the  wind,  followed  by  her  damaged  fleet.  At  that 
moment,  it  seems,  Antony  had  freed  his  flagship  from 
the  surrounding  galleys,  and  thus  obtained  an  uninter- 
rupted view  of  the  Queen's  departure.  His  feelings 
must  have  overwhelmed  him, — anger,  misery,  remorse, 
and  despair  flooding  his  confused  mind.  Cleopatra  was 
leaving  him  to  his  fate  :  she  was  obeying  the  order  which 
he  ought  never  to  have  given  her,  and  he  would  not  see 
her  face  again.  All  the  grace,  the  charm,  the  beauty 
which  had  so  enslaved  him,  was  being  taken  from  him  ; 
and  alone  he  would  have  to  face  the  horrors  of  probable 
defeat.  He  had  relied  of  late  so  entirely  upon  her  that 
her  receding  ships  struck  a  kind  of  terror  into  his  de- 
generate mind.  It  was  intolerable  to  him,  moreover, 
that  she  should  leave  him  without  one  word  of  farewell, 
and  that  the  weight  of  his  cruelty  and  anger  should  be 
the  last  impression  received  by  her.  He  could  not  let 
her  depart  unreconciled  and  unforgiving;  he  must  go 
after  her,  if  only  to  see  her  for  a  moment.    Yet  what  did 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  343 


it  matter  if  he  did  not  return  to  the  battle  ?  There  was 
little  hope  of  victory.  His  fevered  and  exhausted  mind 
saw  no  favourable  incident  in  the  fight  which  raged 
around  him.  Disgrace  and  ruin  stared  him  in  the  face  ; 
and  the  sooner  he  fled  from  the  horror  of  defeat  the 
better  would  be  his  chance  of  retaining  his  reason. 

"  Here  it  was,"  says  Plutarch,  "  that  Antony  showed 
to  all  the  world  that  he  was  no  longer  actuated  by  the 
thoughts  and  motives  of  a  commander  or  a  man,  or 
indeed  by  his  own  judgment  at  all ;  and  what  was  once 
said  in  jest,  that  the  soul  of  a  lover  lives  in  the  loved 
one's  body,  he  proved  to  be  a  serious  truth.    For,  as  if 
he  had  been  born  part  of  her,  and  must  move  with  her 
wheresoever  she  went,  as  soon  as  he  saw  her  ships  sailing 
away  he  abandoned  all  that  were  fighting  and  laying 
down  their  lives  for  him,  and  followed  after  her."  Hailing 
one  of  his  fastest  galleys,  he  quickly  boarded  her  and 
told  the  captain  to  go  after  Cleopatra's  flagship  with  all 
possible  speed.     He  took  with  him  only  two  persons, 
Alexander  the  Syrian,  and  a  certain  Scellias.     It  was 
not  long  before  the  galley,  rowed  by  five  banks  of  oars, 
overhauled  the  retreating  Egyptians,  and  Cleopatra  then 
learnt  that  Antony  had  followed  her  and  had  abandoned 
the  fight.    Her  feelings  may  be  imagined.    Her  leaving 
the  battle  had,  then,  terminated  the  struggle,  and  her 
retreat  had  removed  the  last  hope  of  victory  from  the 
Antonians.     Antony  was  a  ruined  and  defeated  man, 
and  a  speedy  death  was  the  best  thing  he  could  hope 
for;  but  not  so  easily  was  she  to  be  rid  of  him.  He 
was  going  to  cling  to  her  to  the  end :  she  would  never 
be  able  to  shake  herself  clear  of  him,  but,  drowning,  he 
would  drag  her  down  with  him.  Yet  he  was  her  husband, 
and  she  could  not  abandon  him  in  defeat  as  in  victory  he 


344     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


had  wished  to  abandon  her.  She  therefore  signalled  to 
him  to  come  aboard  ;  and  having  done  this  she  retired 
to  her  cabin,  refusing  to  see  him  or  speak  to  him. 
Antony,  having  been  helped  on  to  the  deck,  was  too 
dazed  to  ask  to  be  taken  to  her,  and  too  miserable  to 
wish  to  be  approached  by  her.  He  walked,  as  in  a 
dream,  to  the  prow  of  the  ship,  and  there  seating  him- 
self, buried  his  face  in  his  hands,  uttering  not  a  word. 

Thus  some  hours  passed,  but  after  it  had  grown  dark 
the  beat  of  the  oars  of  several  galleys  was  heard  behind 
them,  and  presently  the  hull  of  the  foremost  vessel 
loomed  out  of  the  darkness.  The  commotion  on  board 
and  the  shouts  across  the  water  aroused  Antony.  For  a 
moment  he  seems  to  have  thought  that  the  pursuing 
ships  were  bringing  him  some  message  from  Actium — 
perhaps  that  the  tide  of  battle  had  turned  in  his  favour. 
He  therefore  ordered  the  captain  to  turn  about  to  meet 
them,  and  to  be  ready  to  give  battle  if  they  belonged  to 
the  enemy ;  and,  standing  in  the  prow,  he  called  across 
the  black  waters:  "Who  is  this  that  follows  Antony?" 
Through  the  darkness  a  voice  responded :  "  I  am 
Eurycles,  the  son  of  Lachares,  come  to  revenge  my 
father's  death."  Antony  had  caused  Lachares  to  be 
beheaded  for  robbery,  although  he  came  of  the  noblest 
family  in  the  Peloponnese ;  and  his  son  had  fitted  out  a 
galley  at  his  own  expense  and  had  sworn  to  avenge  his 
father.  Eurycles  could  now  be  seen  standing  upon  his 
deck,  and  handling  a  lance  as  though  about  to  hurl  it ; 
but  a  moment  later,  by  some  mistake  which  must  have 
been  due  to  the  darkness,  he  had  charged  with  terrific 
force  into  another  Egyptian  vessel  which  was  sailing 
close  to  the  flagship.  The  blow  turned  her  round,  and 
in  the  darkness  and  confusion  which  followed,  Cleopatra's 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  345 


captain  was  able  to  get  away.  The  other  vessel,  how- 
ever, was  captured,  together  with  a  great  quantity  of 
gold  plate  and  rich  furniture  which  she  was  carrying 
back  to  Egypt. 

When  the  danger  was  passed  Antony  sat  himself  down 
once  more  in  the  prow,  nor  did  he  move  from  that  part 
of  the  ship  for  three  whole  days.  Hour  after  hour  he  sat 
staring  out  to  sea,  his  hands  idly  folded  before  him,  his 
mind  dazed  by  his  utter  despair.  By  his  own  folly  he 
had  lost  everything,  and  he  had  carried  down  with  him 
in  his  fall  all  the  hope,  all  the  ambition,  and  all  the 
fortune  of  Cleopatra.  It  is  surprising  that  he  did  not 
at  once  put  an  end  to  his  life,  for  his  misery  was  pitiable ; 
yet,  when  at  last  the  port  of  Tsenarus  was  reached,  at  the 
southern  end  of  the  Greek  peninsula,  he  was  still  seated 
at  the  prow,  his  eyes  fixed  before  him.  At  length,  how- 
ever, Iras,  Charmion,  and  other  of  Cleopatra's  women 
induced  the  Queen  to  invite  him  to  her  cabin  ;  and  after 
much  persuasion  they  consented  to  speak  to  one  another, 
and,  later,  to  sup  and  sleep  together.  Cleopatra  could 
not  but  pity  her  wretched  husband,  now  so  sobered  and 
terribly  conscious  of  the  full  meaning  of  his  position  ; 
and  I  imagine  that  she  gave  him  what  consolation  she 
could.^ 

^  Dion  Cassius  states  (though  he  afterwards  contradicts  himself  by  speaking 
of  the  Queen's  panic)  that  Antony  had  agreed  to  fly  to  Egypt  with  Cleopatra, 
and  this  view  is  upheld  by  Ferrero,  Bouche-Leclercq,  and  others ;  but  I  do 
not  consider  it  probable.  One  can  understand  Antony  flying  after  the  depart- 
ing Queen  in  the  agony  and  excitement  of  the  moment ;  but  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  such  a  movement  was  the  outcome  of  a  carefully  considered  plan 
of  action,  for  all  are  agreed  that  previous  to  the  battle  of  Actium  his  chances 
of  success  had  been  very  fair.  If  the  two  had  arranged  to  retire  to  Egypt 
together,  why  was  Cleopatra's  treasure,  but  not  his  own,  shipped  ;  and  why 
did  they  refuse  to  speak  to  one  another  for  three  whole  days?  Ferrero  thinks 
that  he  had  arranged  amicably  with  Cleopatra  to  retire  to  Egypt  with  her,  and 


346     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


As  their  ship  lay  at  anchor  several  vessels  came  into 
the  harbour,  bringing  fugitives  from  Actium ;  and  these 
reported  to  him  that  his  fleet  was  entirely  destroyed  or 
captured,  more  than  five  thousand  of  his  men  having 
been  killed,  but  that  the  army  stood  firm  and  had  not  at 
once  surrendered.  At  this  news  Cleopatra,  who  had  not 
been  wholly  crushed  under  the  weight  of  her  misfortunes, 
seems  to  have  advised  Antony  to  try  to  save  some  rem- 
nant of  his  forces,  and  to  send  messengers  to  Canidius 
to  march  his  legions  with  all  speed  through  Macedonia 
into  Asia  Minor.  This  he  did ;  and  then,  sending  for 
those  of  his  friends  who  had  come  into  the  port,  he 
begged  them  to  leave  him  and  Cleopatra  to  their  fate, 
and  to  give  their  whole  attention  to  their  own  safety. 
He  and  the  Queen  handed  to  the  fugitives  a  large  sum 
of  money  and  numerous  dishes  and  cups  of  gold  and 
silver  wherewith  to  purchase  their  security ;  and  he 
wrote  letters  in  their  behalf  to  his  steward  at  Corinth, 
that  he  should  provide  for  them  until  they  had  made 
their  peace  with  Octavian.  In  deep  dejection  these  de- 
feated officers  attempted  to  refuse  the  gifts,  but  Antony, 
pressing  them  to  accept,  "  cheered  them,"  as  Plutarch 
says,  "  with  all  the  goodness  and  humanity  imaginable," 
so  that  they  could  not  refrain  from  tears.  At  length  the 
fleet  put  out  to  sea  once  more,  and  set  sail  for  the  coast 
of  Egypt,  arriving  many  days  later  at  Paraetonium,  a 
desolate  spot  some  i6o  miles  west  of  Alexandria,  where 
a  small  Roman  garrison  was  stationed.^  Here  Antony 
decided  to  stay  for  a  time  in  hiding,  while  the  braver 

that  the  naval  battle  had  not  gone  much  against  him  ;  but  surely  it  is  difBcult 
to  suppose  that  he  would  deliberately  desert  his  huge  army  and  his  undefeated 
navy  for  strategic  reasons. 
*  Scholz  :  Reise  zwischen  Alex,  und  Paroetonium. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  347 


Cleopatra  went  on  to  the  capital  to  face  her  people ; 
and  for  the  next  few  weeks  he  remained  in  the  great 
solitude  of  this  desert  station.  A  few  mud  huts,  a  palm- 
tree  or  two,  and  a  little  fort  constituted  the  dreary  settle- 
ment, which  in  the  damp  heat  of  September  must  have 
presented  a  colourless  scene  of  peculiarly  depressing 
aspect.  This  part  of  the  coast  is  absolutely  barren,  and 
only  those  who  have  visited  these  regions  in  the  summer 
time  can  realise  the  strange  melancholy,  the  complete 
loneliness,  of  this  sun-scorched  outpost.  The  slow, 
breaking  waves  beat  upon  the  beach  with  the  steady 
insistence  of  a  tolling  bell  which  counts  out  a  man's 
life ;  the  desert  rolls  back  from  the  bleak  sea-shore,  carry- 
ing the  eye  to  the  leaden  haze  of  the  far  horizon ;  and 
overhead  the  sun  beats  down  from  a  sky  which  is,  as  it 
were,  deadened  by  the  heat.  In  surroundings  such  as 
these  heart-broken  Antony  remained  for  several  weeks, 
daily  wandering  along  the  beach  accompanied  only  by 
two  friends,  one,  a  certain  Aristocrates,  a  Greek  rhetor- 
ician, and  the  other  the  Roman  soldier  Lucilius,  who, 
fighting  on  the  side  of  the  enemy  at  Philippi,  as  we  have 
read,  had  heroically  prevented  the  capture  of  the  defeated 
Brutus,  and  had  been  pardoned  by  Antony  as  a  reward 
for  his  courage,  remaining  thereafter,  and  until  the  last, 
his  devoted  friend. 

At  length  one  of  his  ships,  putting  into  the  little  port, 
seems  to  have  brought  him  the  news  of  events  at  Actium. 
After  his  flight  the  battered  remnant  of  his  fleet,  having 
continued  the  fight  until  sunset,  sailed  back  into  the  Gulf 
of  Ambracia ;  and  next  day  Octavian  invited  them  and 
the  army  to  surrender  on  easy  terms.  No  one,  however, 
would  believe  that  Antony  had  fled,  and  the  offer  was 
refused.    Next  day,  however,  some  of  the  vassal  kings 


348     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 

laid  down  their  arms,  and,  after  a  week  of  suspense, 
Canidius  fled.  Part  of  the  legions  scattered  into 
Macedonia,  and  on  September  gth  the  remainder  sur- 
rendered together  with  the  fleet.  Octavian  then  sailed 
round  to  Athens,  and  there  received  the  submission  of 
every  city  in  Greece,  with  the  exception  of  Corinth.  He 
at  once  began  a  general  massacre  of  Antony's  adherents, 
and,  to  save  their  skins,  the  townspeople  in  every  district 
heaped  honours  upon  the  conqueror,  erecting  statues  to 
him  and  decreeing  him  all  manner  of  civic  distinctions. 
Shortly  after  this  a  messenger  reached  Antony  from  the 
west  stating  that  the  legions  left  in  North  Africa  had  also 
gone  over  to  Octavian;  and  thereupon  he  attempted  to 
commit  suicide.  He  was,  however,  restrained  by  his  two 
faithful  friends;  and  in  the  deepest  dejection  he  was  at 
last  persuaded  by  them  to  sail  for  Alexandria,  once  more 
to  comfort  himself  with  the  presence  of  Cleopatra. 


349 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

CLEOPATRA'S  ATTEMPT  TO  BEGIN  AGAIN. 

Crushed  and  broken  by  her  misfortunes,  it  might  have 
been  expected  that  Cleopatra  would  now  give  up  the 
fight.  She  was  not  made,  however,  of  ordinary  stuff; 
and  she  could  not  yet  bring  herself  to  believe  that  her 
cause  was  hopeless.  On  her  voyage  across  the  Mediter- 
ranean she  seems  to  have  pulled  herself  together  after 
the  first  shock  of  defeat ;  and,  with  that  wonderful  re- 
cuperative power,  of  which  we  have  already  seen  many 
instances  in  her  life,  she  appears,  so  to  speak,  to  have 
regained  her  feet,  standing  up  once  more,  eager  and 
defiant,  to  face  the  world.  The  defeat  of  Antony,  though 
it  postponed  for  many  years  all  chance  of  obtaining  a 
footing  in  Rome,  did  not  altogether  preclude  that  possi- 
bility. He  would  now  probably  kill  himself,  and  though 
the  thought  of  his  suicide  must  have  been  very  dis- 
tressing to  her,  she  could  but  feel  that  she  would 
be  well  rid  of  him.  A  drunken  and  discredited  outlaw 
with  a  price  upon  his  head  was  not  a  desirable  consort 
for  a  Queen ;  and  he  had  long  since  ceased  to  make  an 
appeal  to  any  quality  in  her,  save  to  her  pity.  Octavian 
would  hunt  him  down,  and  would  not  rest  until  he  had 


350     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


driven  him  to  the  land  of  the  shades ;  but  she  herself 
might  possibly  be  spared  and  her  throne  be  saved  in 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  she  had  been  the  great 
Dictator's  "  wife."  Then,  some  chance  occurrence,  such 
as  the  death  of  Octavian,  might  give  her  son  Caesarion 
the  opportunity  of  putting  himself  forward  once  more  as 
Caesar's  heir. 

Antony  was  now  a  terrible  encumbrance.  His  presence 
with  her  endangered  her  own  life,  and,  what  was  more 
important,  imperilled  the  existence  of  her  royal  dynasty. 
Had  he  not  the  courage,  like  defeated  Cato  at  Utica,  like 
her  uncle  Ptolemy  of  Cyprus,  like  Brutus  after  Philippi, 
and  like  hundreds  of  others,  to  kill  himself  and  so  end  his 
misfortunes  ?  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  suicide  after 
disaster  was  a  doctrine  emphatically  preached  throughout 
the  civilised  world  at  this  time,  and  so  frequently  was  it 
practised  that  it  was  felt  to  be  far  less  terrible  than  we 
are  now  accustomed  to  think  it.  The  popular  spectacle 
of  gladiatorial  fights,  the  many  wars  conducted  in  recent 
years,  and  the  numerous  political  murders  and  massacres, 
had  made  people  very  familiar  with  violent  death.  The 
case  of  Arria,  the  wife  of  Pastus,  is  an  illustration  of 
the  light  manner  in  which  the  termination  of  life  was 
regarded.  Her  husband  having  been  condemned  to 
death,  Arria  determined  to  anticipate  the  executioner; 
and  therefore,  having  driven  a  dagger  into  her  breast, 
she  coolly  handed  the  weapon  to  him,  with  the  casual 
words,  Paete  non  dole,  "  It  isn't  painful."  ^  I  do  not 
think,  therefore,  that  Cleopatra  need  be  blamed  if  she 
now  hoped  that  Antony  would  make  his  exit  from  the 
stage  of  life. 

Her  fertile  brain  turned  to  the  consideration  of  other 

^  Pliny,  Epist.  iii.  1 6. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  351 


means  of  holding  her  throne  should  Octavian's  clemency 
not  be  extended  to  her.  Her  dominant  hope  was  now 
the  keeping  of  Egypt  independent  of  Rome.  The  found- 
ing of  an  Egypto-Roman  empire  having  been  indefinitely 
postponed  by  the  defeat  at  Actium,  her  whole  energies 
would  have  to  be  given  to  the  retention  of  some  sort  of 
crown  for  her  son.  The  dominions  which  Antony  had 
given  her  she  could  hardly  expect  to  hold  :  but  for  Egypt, 
her  birthright,  she  must  fight  while  breath  remained  in 
her  body.  Under  this  inspiration  her  thoughts  turned  to 
the  Orient,  to  Media,  Persia,  Parthia,  and  India.  Was 
there  not  some  means  of  forming  an  alliance  with  one  or 
all  of  these  distant  countries,  thereby  strengthening  her 
position  ?  Her  son  Alexander  Helios  was  prospective 
King  of  Media.  Could  not  she  find  in  Persia  or  India  an 
extension  of  the  dominions  which  she  could  hand  on  to 
Caesarion  ?  And  could  not  some  great  amalgamation  of 
these  nations,  which  had  never  been  conquered  by  Rome, 
be  effected  ? 

I  imagine  that  her  thoughts  ran  in  these  channels  as 
she  sailed  over  the  sea;  but  when  she  had  dropped 
Antony  at  Parastonium  and  was  heading  for  Alexandria 
the  more  immediate  question  of  her  entry  into  the  capital 
must  have  filled  her  mind.  It  was  essential  to  prevent 
the  news  of  the  defeat  from  being  spread  in  the  capital 
until  after  she  had  once  more  obtained  control  of  affairs. 
She  therefore  seems  to  have  arranged  to  sail  into  the 
harbour  some  days  before  the  arrival  of  the  fleet,  and 
she  caused  her  flagship  to  be  decorated  as  though  in 
celebration  of  a  victory.  Her  arrival  took  place  at  about 
the  end  of  September  B.C.  31 ;  and,  with  music  playing, 
sailors  dancing,  and  pennants  flying,  the  ship  passed 
under  the  shadow  of  the  white  Pharos  and  entered  the 


352     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Great  Harbour.  Having  moored  the  vessel  at  the  steps 
of  the  Palace,  Cleopatra  was  carried  ashore  in  royal  state, 
and  was  soon  safely  ensconced  behind  the  walls  of  the 
Lochias.  She  brought,  no  doubt,  written  orders  from 
Antony  to  the  legions  stationed  in  Alexandria ;  and, 
relying  on  the  loyalty  of  these  troops,  she  soon  took 
the  sternest  measures  to  prevent  any  revolt  or  rioting 
in  the  city  as  the  news  of  the  disaster  began  to  filter 
through.  Several  prominent  citizens  who  attempted  to 
stir  up  trouble  were  promptly  arrested  and  put  to  death  ; 
and  by  the  time  that  full  confirmation  of  the  news  of 
the  defeat  had  arrived,  Cleopatra  was  in  absolute  control 
of  the  situation. 

She  now  began  to  carry  out  her  schemes  in  regard  to 
the  East,  in  pursuance  of  which  her  first  step  was,  natur- 
ally, the  confirmation  of  her  treaty  with  the  King  of 
Media.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  elder  son  of 
Cleopatra  and  Antony,  Alexander  Helios,  had  been 
married  to  the  King  of  Media's  daughter,  on  the  under- 
standing, apparently,  that  he  should  be  heir  to  the 
kingdoms  of  Media  and  Armenia.  The  little  princess 
was  now  living  at  Alexandria ;  and  it  will  be  recalled 
that  Artavasdes,  the  dethroned  King  of  Armenia,  the 
greater  part  of  whose  kingdom  had  been  handed  over 
to  Media,  remained  a  prisoner  in  the  Egyptian  capital, 
where  he  had  been  incarcerated  since  the  Triumph  in 
B.C.  34,  three  years  previously.  The  defeat  of  Antony, 
however,  would  probably  cause  the  reinstatement  of  the 
rulers  deposed  by  him ;  and  it  seemed  very  probable  that 
Octavian  would  restore  Artavasdes  to  his  lost  kingdom, 
and  that  Media,  on  the  other  hand,  by  reason  of  its 
support  of  the  Antonian  party,  would  be  stripped  of  as 
much  territory  as  the  Romans  dared  to  seize.    In  order 


Btiiish  Museum.]  {Pkoiogtaph  by  Macbeth. 

CLEOPATRA. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  353 


to  prevent  this  by  removing  the  claimant  to  the  Armenian 
throne,  and  perhaps  owing  to  some  attempt  on  the  part 
of  Artavasdes  to  escape  or  to  communicate  with  Octavian, 
Cleopatra  ordered  him  to  be  put  to  death  ;  and  she  there- 
upon sent  an  embassy  to  Media  bearing  his  head  to  the 
King  as  a  token  of  her  good  faith.^  I  think  it  is  probable 
that  at  the  same  time  she  sent  the  little  Alexander  and 
his  child-wife  lotapa  to  the  Median  court  in  order  that 
they  might  there  live  in  safety;  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  she  made  various  proposals  to  the  King  for 
joint  action. 

She  then  began  an  undertaking  which  Plutarch  de- 
scribes as  "a  most  bold  and  wonderful  enterprise."  The 
northernmost  inlet  of  the  Red  Sea,  the  modern  Gulf  of 
Suez,  was  separated  from  the  waters  of  the  Mediterranean 
by  a  belt  of  low-lying  desert  not  more  than  thirty-five 
miles  in  breadth.  Across  the  northern  side  of  this  isthmus 
the  Pelusian  branch  of  the  Nile  passed  from  the  Delta 
down  to  the  Mediterranean.  Somewhat  further  south 
lay  the  Lakes  of  Balah  and  Timsah,  and  between  these 
and  the  Gulf  of  Suez  lay  the  so-called  Bitter  Lakes. 
These  pieces  of  water  had  been  linked  together  by  a 
canal  opened  nearly  five  hundred  years  previously  by 
the  great  Persian  conqueror  Darius  I.,  who  had  thus 
sent  his  ships  through  from  one  sea  to  the  other  by  a 
route  not  far  divergent  from  that  of  the  modern  Suez 
Canal.  King  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  three  hundred  years 
later,  had  reopened  the  waterway,  and  had  built  a  great 
system  of  locks  at  its  southern  end,  near  the  fortress 

1  In  a  very  similar  manner  Herod,  who  had  taken  the  part  of  Antony  and 
who  now  feared  that  Octavian  would  dethrone  him  in  favour  of  the  earlier 
sovereign,  Hyrcanus,  put  that  claimant  to  death,  so  that  Octavian,  as  Josephus 
indicates,  should  not  find  it  easy  to  fill  Herod's  place. 

Z 


354     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


of  Clysma ;  ^  but  now  a  large  part  of  the  canal  had 
become  blocked  up  once  more  by  the  encroaching  sand, 
and  any  vessel  which  had  to  be  transported  from  the 
Mediterranean  to  the  Red  Sea  would  have  to  be  dragged 
for  several  miles  over  the  desert.  In  spite  of  the  enor- 
mous labour  involved,  however,  Cleopatra  determined  to 
transfer  immediately  all  her  battleships  which  had  sur- 
vived Actium  to  the  Red  Sea,  where  they  would  be  safe 
from  the  clutches  of  Octavian,  and  would  be  in  a  position 
to  sail  to  India  or  to  Southern  Persia  whenever  she  might 
require  them  to  do  so.  She  also  began  with  startling 
energy  to  build  other  vessels  at  Suez,  in  the  hope  of 
there  fitting  out  an  imposing  fleet.  Plutarch  states 
simply  that  her  object  was  to  go  "with  her  soldiers  and 
her  treasure  to  secure  herself  a  home  where  she  might 
live  in  peace,  far  away  from  war  and  slavery " ;  but, 
viewing  the  enterprise  in  connection  with  the  embassy 
to  Media,  it  appears  to  me  that  she  had  determined  to 
put  into  partial  execution  the  schemes  of  which  she  seems 
to  have  talked  with  Julius  Caesar  while  he  was  staying 
with  her  in  Alexandria,-  in  regard  to  the  conquest  of  the 
East. 

Media,  Parthia,  and  India  were  all  outside  the  influence 
of  Rome.  Of  these  countries  Media  was  now  bound  to 
Egypt  by  the  closest  ties  of  blood,  while  India  was 
engaged  in  a  thriving  trade  with  Cleopatra's  kingdom. 
Parthia,  now  the  enemy  of  Media,  lay  somewhere  between 
these  vast  lands ;  and  if  the  Egyptian  fleet  could  sail 
round  the  coasts  of  Arabia  and  effect  a  junction  with 
the  Median  armies  in  the  Persian  Gulf,  some  sort  of 

1  I  found  the  remains  of  this  fortress  on  an  island  behind  the  Governorat 
at  Suez. 

Page  1 1 6. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  355 


support  might  be  given  to  the  allies  by  the  Indian 
States,  and  Parthia  could  be  conquered  or  frightened 
into  joining  the  confederacy.  Syria  and  Armenia  could 
then  be  controlled,  and  once  more  the  fight  with  the 
West  might  be  undertaken.  In  the  meantime  these  far 
countries  offered  a  safe  hiding-place  for  herself  and  her 
family ;  and  having,  as  I  suppose,  despatched  her  son 
Alexander  to  his  future  kingdom  of  Media,  she  now 
began  to  consider  the  sending  of  her  beloved  Caesarion 
to  India,^  there  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  approach  of 
her  fleet. 

In  these  great  schemes  Antony  played  no  part.  During 
their  undertaking  he  was  wandering  about  the  desolate 
shores  of  Parsetonium,  engrossed  in  his  misfortunes  and 
bemoaning  the  ingratitude  of  his  generals  and  friends 
whom,  in  forgetfulness  of  his  own  behaviour  at  Actium, 
he  accused  of  deserting  him.  Cleopatra,  as  she  toiled 
at  the  organisation  of  her  new  projects,  and  struggled 
by  every  means,  fair  or  foul,  to  raise  money  for  the 
great  task,  must  have  heartily  wished  her  husband  out 
of  the  way ;  and  it  must  have  been  with  very  mixed 
feelings  that  she  presently  received  the  news  of  his 
approach.  On  his  arrival,  perhaps  in  November,  he 
was  astonished  at  the  Queen's  activities;  but,  being 
opposed  to  the  idea  of  keeping  up  the  struggle  and  of 
setting  out  for  the  East,  he  tried  to  discourage  her  by 
talking  hopefully  about  the  loyalty  of  the  various  gar- 
risons of  whose  desertion  he  had  not  yet  heard.  He 
seems  also  to  have  pointed  out  to  her  that  some  sort 
of  peace  might  be  made  with  Octavian,  which  would 
secure  her  throne  to  her  family ;  and,  in  one  way  and 

1  Plutarch  definitely  states  this,  and  I  here  use  the  fact  as  one  of  the  main 
arguments  in  my  suppositions  in  regard  to  Cleopatra's  plans. 


356     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


another,  he  managed  to  dishearten  her  and  to  dull  her 
energies.  He  himself  desired  now  to  retire  from  public 
life,  and  to  take  up  his  residence  in  some  city,  such  as 
Athens,  where  he  might  live  in  the  obscurity  of  private 
citizenship.  He  well  knew  the  contempt  in  which  Cleo- 
patra held  him,  and  at  this  time  he  thought  it  would  be 
best,  in  the  long-run,  if  he  left  her  to  her  fate.  At  all 
events,  he  seems  to  have  earnestly  hoped  that  she  would 
not  expect  him  to  set  out  on  any  further  adventures ; 
and  in  this  his  views  must  have  met  hers,  for  she  could 
have  had  no  use  for  him.  Her  son  Caesarion  was  grow- 
ing to  manhood,  and  in  the  energy  of  his  youth  he  would 
be  worth  a  hundred  degenerate  Antonys. 

An  unexpected  check,  however,  was  put  to  her  schemes, 
and  once  again  misfortune  seemed  to  dog  her  steps.  The 
Nabathasan  Arabs  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Petra,  being 
on  bad  terms  with  the  Egyptians,  raided  the  new  docks 
at  Suez  and,  driving  off  the  troops  stationed  there,  burnt 
the  first  galleys  which  had  been  dragged  across  from  the 
Mediterranean  and  those  which  were  being  built  in  the 
docks.  Cleopatra  could  not  spare  troops  enough  to 
protect  the  work,  and  therefore  the  great  enterprise  had 
to  be  abandoned. 

Shortly  after  this  Canidius  himself  arrived  in  Alex- 
andria, apparently  bringing  the  news  that  all  Antony's 
troops  in  all  parts  of  the  dominions  had  surrendered  to 
Octavian,  and  that  nothing  now  remained  to  him  save 
Egypt  and  its  forces.  Thereupon,  by  the  code  of  honour 
then  in  recognition,  Antony  ought  most  certainly  to  have 
killed  himself;  but  a  new  idea  had  entered  his  head, 
appealing  to  his  sentimental  and  theatrical  nature.  He 
decided  that  he  would  not  die,  but  would  live,  like  Timon 
of  Athens,  the  enemy  of  all  men.    He  would  build  him- 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  357 


self  a  little  house,  the  walls  buffeted  by  the  rolling  swell 
of  the  sea ;  and  there  in  solitude  he  would  count  out  the 
days  of  his  life,  his  hand  turned  against  all  men.  There 
was  a  pier  jutting  out  into  the  Great  Harbour^  just  to 
the  west  of  the  Island  of  Antirrhodos,  close  to  the  Forum 
and  the  Temple  of  Neptune.  Though  a  powerful  con- 
struction, some  three  hundred  yards  long,  it  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  then  in  use ;  and  Antony  hit  upon 
the  idea  of  repairing  it  and  building  himself  a  little  villa 
at  its  extreme  end,  wherein  he  might  dwell  in  solitude- 
Cleopatra  was  far  too  much  occupied  with  the  business 
of  life  to  care  what  her  husband  did ;  and  she  seems  to 
have  humoured  him  as  she  would  a  child,  and  to  have 
caused  a  nice  little  house  to  be  built  for  him  on  this 
site,  which,  in  honour  of  the  misanthrope  whom  Antony 
desired  to  emulate,  she  named  the  Timonium.  It  appears 
that  she  was  entirely  estranged  from  him  at  this  tim.e, 
and  he  was,  no  doubt,  glad  enough  to  remove  himself 
from  the  scorn  of  her  eyes  and  tongue.  From  his  new 
dwelling  he  could  look  across  the  water  to  Cleopatra's 
palace ;  and  at  night  the  blaze  of  the  Pharos  beacon, 
and  the  many  gleaming  windows  on  the  Lochias  Pro- 
montory and  around  the  harbour,  all  reflected  with  the 
stars  in  the  dark  water,  must  have  formed  a  spectacle 
romantic  enough  for  any  dreamer.  In  the  daytime  he 
could  watch  the  vessels  entering  or  leaving  the  port ; 
and  behind  him  the  noise  and  bustle  of  Cleopatra's  busy 
Alexandrians  was  wafted  to  his  ears  to  serve  as  a  correct 
subject  for  his  Timonian  curses. 

The  famous  Timon,  I  need  hardly  say,  was  a  citizen  of 

'  I  do  not  think  itcould  have  been  begun  to  be  built  at  this  time,  although 
Plutarch  says  so  :  it  would  have  taken  many  months  to  complete.  It  was  more 
probably  already  in  existence. 


358     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Athens,  who  lived  during  the  days  of  the  Peloponnesian 
war,  and  figures  in  the  comedies  of  Aristophanes  and 
Plato.  He  heartily  detested  his  fellow-men,  his  only 
two  associates  being  Alcibiades,  whom  he  esteemed 
because  he  was  likely  to  do  so  much  mischief  to  Athens, 
and  Apemantus,  who  also  was  a  confirmed  misanthrope. 
Once  when  Timon  and  Apemantus  were  celebrating  a 
drinking  festival  alone  together,  the  latter,  wishing  to 
show  how  much  he  appreciated  the  fact  that  no  other 
of  his  hated  fellow-men  was  present,  remarked :  "  What 
a  pleasant  little  party,  Timon  !  "  "  Well,  it  would  be," 
replied  Timon,  "  if  you  were  not  here."  Upon  another 
occasion,  during  an  assembly  in  the  public  meeting- 
place,  Timon  mounted  into  the  speaker's  place  and 
addressed  the  crowd.  "  Men  of  Athens,"  he  said,  "  I 
have  a  little  plot  of  ground,  and  in  it  grows  a  fig-tree, 
from  the  branches  of  which  many  citizens  have  been 
pleased  to  hang  themselves  ;  and  now,  having  resolved 
to  build  on  that  site,  I  wish  to  announce  it  publicly, 
that  any  of  you  who  may  so  wish  may  go  and  hang 
yourselves  there  before  I  cut  it  down."  Before  his 
death  he  composed  two  epitaphs,  one  of  which  reads — 

"  Timon,  the  misanthrope,  am  I  below. 
Go,  and  revile  me,  stranger — only^t?/" 

The  other,  which  was  inscribed  upon  his  tomb,  reads — 

"  Freed  from  a  tedious  life,  I  lie  below. 
Ask  not  my  name,  but  take  my  curse  and  go." 

Such  was  the  man  whom  Antony  now  desired  to  imi- 
tate ;  and  for  the  present  the  fallen  Autocrator  may  be 
left  seated  in  glum  solitude,  while  Cleopatra's  eager 
struggle  for  her  throne  occupies  our  attention.  The 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  359 


Queen's  activities  were  now  directed  to  urgent  affairs 
of  State.  She  engaged  herself  in  sending  embassies  to 
the  various  neighbouring  kingdoms  in  the  attempt  to 
confirm  her  earher  friendships.  Alexandria  and  Egypt 
had  to  be  governed  with  extreme  firmness,  in  order  to 
prevent  any  insurrections  or  riots  in  these  critical  days ; 
and,  at  the  same  time,  her  subjects  had  to  be  heavily 
taxed  so  that  she  might  raise  money  for  her  projects. 
The  task  of  government  must  have  been  peculiarly 
anxious,  and  the  dread  of  the  impending  reckoning 
with  Octavian  hung  over  her  like  a  dark  cloud.  It 
was  quite  certain  that  Octavian  would  presently  invade 
Egypt ;  but  for  the  moment  he  was  prevented  from 
doing  so,  mainly  by  financial  embarrassments.  After 
his  visit  to  Athens  he  had  crossed  into  Asia  Minor, 
and  now  he  was  making  arrangements  for  an  advance 
through  Syria  to  Egypt,  as  soon  as  he  should  have 
collected  enough  money  for  the  expedition. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  year  B.C.  31,  the  Jewish 
King  Herod  seems  to  have  come  to  Alexandria  to  discuss 
the  situation  with  Antony,  his  former  friend  and  patron. 
Herod's  dislike  of  Cleopatra,  and  his  desire  to  put  her 
to  death  when  she  was  passing  through  his  country, 
will  be  recalled  ;  ^  and  now,  after  paying  the  necessary 
compliments  to  the  Queen,  he  appears  to  have  engaged 
himself  in  earnest  conversation  with  Antony,  perhaps 
visiting  him  in  his  sea-girt  hermitage.  Josephus  tells 
us  that  he  urged  the  fallen  triumvir  to  arrange  for  the 
assassination  of  Cleopatra,  declaring  that  only  by  so 
doing  could  he  hope  to  have  his  life  spared  by  Octavian. 
Antony,  however,  would  not  entertain  this  proposal,  for, 
though  anxious  to  escape  his  impending  doom,  he  was 

'  Page  272. 


36o     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


not  prepared  to  do  so  at  the  cost  of  his  wife.  Herod's 
object,  of  course,  was  to  rid  his  horizon  of  the  fascinat- 
ing queen,  who  might  very  possibly  play  upon  Octavian's 
sympathies  and  retain  her  Egyptian  and  Syrian  do- 
minions, thus  remaining  an  objectionable  and  exacting 
neighbour  to  the  kingdom  of  Judea.  But  failing  to 
obtain  Antony's  co-operation  in  this  plot,  he  returned 
to  Jerusalem,  and  presently  sailed  for  Rhodes  to  pay 
his  respects  to  Octavian.  Antony,  hearing  of  his  in- 
tention, sent  after  him  a  certain  Alexis  of  Laodicea,  to 
urge  him  not  to  abandon  his  cause,  This  Alexis  had 
been  instrumental  in  persuading  Antony  to  divorce 
Octavia,  and  Cleopatra  had  often  used  him  in  persuad- 
ing her  husband  to  actions  in  regard  to  which  he  was 
undetermined ;  but  he  now  showed  the  misapplication  of 
the  trust  placed  in  him  both  by  Antony  and  the  Queen, 
for  he  did  not  return  to  Egypt  from  Herod's  court, 
going  on  instead  to  place  himself  at  the  disposal  of 
Octavian.  His  connection  with  Octavia's  divorce,  how- 
ever, had  not  been  forgotten  by  her  revengeful  brother, 
and  his  treachery  was  rewarded  by  a  summary  death. 
Herod,  meanwhile,  by  boldly  admitting  that  he  had 
been  Antony's  friend,  but  was  now  prepared  to  change 
his  allegiance,  managed  to  win  the  favour  of  the  con- 
queror, and  his  throne  was  not  taken  from  him,  al- 
though practically  all  the  other  kings  and  princes  who 
had  assisted  Antony  were  dispossessed. 

About  the  beginning  of  February  B.C.  30,  Octavian 
returned  to  Italy  to  quell  certain  disturbances  arising 
from  his  inability  to  pay  his  disbanded  troops,  and 
there  he  stayed  about  a  month,  sailing  once  more  for 
Asia  Minor  early  in  March.  Dion  tells  us  that  the 
news  of  his  voyage  to  Rome  and  that  of  his  return  to 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  361 


Asia  Minor  were  received  simultaneously  in  Alexandria, 
probably  late  in  April ;  but  I  think  it  very  unlikely  that 
the  news  of  the  first  voyage  was  so  long  delayed,  and, 
at  any  rate,  some  rumours  of  Octavian's  retirement  to 
Rome  must  have  filtered  through  to  Cleopatra  during 
the  month  of  March. 

The  news  of  this  respite  once  more  fired  the  Queen 
with  hope,  and  she  determined  to  make  the  best  pos- 
sible use  of  this  precious  gift  of  time.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  her  son  Cassarion,  if  I  am  not  in 
error,  was  born  at  the  beginning  of  July  B.C.  47 ;  ^  but 
a  short  time  afterwards,  some  eighty  days  were  added 
to  the  calendar  in  order  to  correct  the  existing  inex- 
actitude,^ the  real  anniversary  of  the  boy's  birthday 
thereby  being  made  to  fall  at  about  the  middle  of 
April.^  The  preparations  for  the  celebration  in  this 
year  B.C.  30,  of  his  seventeenth  birthday,  were  thus 
beginning  to  be  put  into  motion  at  the  time  when 
Octavian  was  still  thought  to  be  struggling  in  Rome 
with  his  discontented  troops.  Cleopatra  therefore  de- 
termined to  mark  the  festival  by  very  great  splendour, 
and  to  celebrate  it  more  particularly  by  a  public  declar- 
ation of  the  fact  that  Csesarion  was  now  of  age.  I 
do  not  think  it  can  be  determined  with  certainty 
whether  or  not  the  seventeenth  birthday  was  the  cus- 
tomary age  at  which  the  state  of  manhood  was  sup- 

1  Page  130.  2  Page  j^y, 

'  I  do  not  think  that  the  celebrations  of  this  anniversary  which  now  took 
place  could  possibly  have  occurred  later  than  the  middle  of  April,  and  there- 
fore Caesarion  could  not  have  been  born  later  than  the  beginning  of  July,  an 
argument  which  bears  on  the  length  of  Julius  Caesar's  stay  in  Eg^^pt,  discussed 
on  page  128.  It  seems  always  to  have  been  thought  that  the  holding  of  the 
anniversary  this  year  was  anti-dated  for  political  reasons,  but  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  actual  date  was' adhered  to. 


362     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


posed  to  be  reached  by  an  Egyptian  sovereign,  but  it 
may  certainly  be  said  that  the  coming  of  age  was 
seldom,  if  ever,  postponed  to  a  later  period.  Cleopatra 
seems  to  have  wished  to  make  a  very  particular  point 
of  this  fact  of  her  son's  majority,  which  would  demon- 
strate to  the  Alexandrians,  as  Dion  says,  "  that  they 
now  had  a  man  as  King."  Let  the  public  think,  if 
they  were  so  minded,  that  she  herself  was  a  defeated 
and  condemned  woman ;  but  from  this  time  onwards 
they  had  a  grown  man  to  lead  them,  a  son  of  the 
divine  Julius  Caesar,  for  whose  rights  she  had  fought 
while  he  was  a  boy,  but  who  was  henceforth  capable 
of  defending  himself.  Whatever  her  own  fate  might 
be,  her  son  would,  at  any  rate,  have  a  better  chance 
of  retaining  his  throne  by  being  firmly  established  upon 
it  in  the  capacity  of  a  grown  man.  In  future  she 
herself  could  work,  as  it  were,  behind  the  scenes,  and 
her  son  could  carry  on  the  great  task  which  she  had 
so  long  striven  to  accomplish. 

When  the  news  of  the  coming  celebrations  was  con- 
veyed to  Antony  in  his  hermitage,  he  seems  to  have 
been  much  disturbed  by  it.  Csesarion  and  his  rights 
had  been  to  a  large  extent  the  cause  of  his  ruin,  and 
he  must  have  been  somewhat  frightened  at  the  audacity 
of  the  Queen  in  thus  giving  Octavian  further  cause  for 
annoyance.  Here  was  Alexandria  preparing  to  cele- 
brate in  the  most  triumphant  manner  the  coming  of 
age  of  Octavian's  rival,  the  claimant  to  Julius  Caesar's 
powers  and  estate.  Was  the  move  to  be  regarded  as 
clever  policy  or  as  reckless  effrontery  ?  Leaving  the 
passive  solitude  of  his  little  Timonium,  he  seems  to  have 
entered  once  more  into  active  discussions  with  Cleo- 
patra;  and  as  a  result  of  these  conversations,  he 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  363 


appears  to  have  received  the  impression  that  his  wife's 
desire  was  now  to  resign  her  power  to  a  large  extent 
into  her  son's  hands,  thus  leaving  to  the  energy  of  youth 
the  labours  which  middle  age  had  failed  to  accomplish. 
This  aspect  of  the  movement  appealed  to  him,  and  he 
determined  in  like  manner  to  be  represented  in  future 
by  a  younger  generation.  His  son  by  Fulvia,  Antyllus, 
who  was  a  year  or  so  younger  than  Caesarion,  was 
living  in  the  Alexandrian  Palace ;  and  Antony  therefore 
arranged  with  Cleopatra  that  the  two  youths  should 
together  be  declared  of  age  (ephebi),  Antyllus  thence- 
forth being  authorised  to  wear  the  legal  dress  of  Roman 
manhood.  Cleopatra  then  appears  to  have  persuaded 
her  husband  to  give  up  his  ridiculous  affectation  of 
misanthropy,  and  either  to  make  himself  useful  in 
organising  her  schemes  of  defence,  or  to  leave  Egypt 
altogether.  Antony  was  by  this  time  heartily  tired 
of  his  solitary  life,  and  he  was  glad  enough  to  abandon 
his  Timonian  pose.  He  therefore  took  up  his  residence 
once  more  in  the  Palace,  and  both  he  and  Cleopatra 
made  some  attempt  to  renew  their  old  relationship. 
Their  paths  had  diverged,  however,  too  far  ever  to 
resume  any  sort  of  unity.  Antony  had  brooded  in 
solitude  over  his  supposed  wrongs,  and  he  now  regarded 
his  wife  with  a  sort  of  suspicion ;  and  she,  on  her  part, 
accepted  him  no  longer  as  her  equal,  but  as  a  creature 
deserving  her  contempt,  though  arousing  to  some  extent 
her  generous  pity. 

The  birthday  celebrations  were  conducted  on  the  most 
magnificent  lines,  and  the  whole  city  was  given  over  to 
feasting  and  revelling  for  many  days.  The  impending 
storm  was  put  away  from  the  minds  of  all,  and  it  would 
have  been  indeed  difficult  for  a  visitor  to  Alexandria 


364     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


during  that  time  to  believe  that  he  had  entered  a  city 
whose  rulers  had  recently  been  defeated  by  an  enemy 
already  preparing  to  invade  Egypt  itself.  Cleopatra,  in 
fact,  could  not  be  brought  to  admit  that  the  game  was 
up ;  and  in  spite  of  the  misery  and  anxiety  weighing 
upon  her  mind  she  kept  a  cheerful  and  hopeful  demeanour 
which  ought  to  have  won  for  her  the  admiration  of  all 
historians.  Antony,  on  the  other  hand,  was  completely 
demoralised  by  the  situation  ;  and  the  birthday  festivities 
having  whetted  his  appetite  once  more  for  the  pleasures 
of  riotous  living,  he  decided  to  bring  his  life  to  a  close 
in  a  round  of  mad  dissipation.  Calling  together  the 
members  of  the  order  of  Inimitable  Livers,  the  banquet- 
ing club  which  he  had  founded  some  years  before,^  he 
invited  them  to  sign  their  names  to  the  roll  of  member- 
ship of  a  new  society  which  he  named  the  Synapotha- 
noumenoi  or  the  "  Die-togethers."  "Let  us  eat,  drink, 
and  be  merry,  for  to-morrow  we  die,"  must  have  been 
his  motto;  and  he  seems  to  have  thrown  himself  into 
this  new  phase  with  as  much  shallow  profundity  as  he 
had  displayed  in  his  adoption  of  the  Timonian  pose. 
Having  no  longer  a  world-wide  audience  before  whom  he 
could  play  the  jovial  role  of  Bacchus  or  Hercules,  he  now 
acted  his  dramatic  parts  before  the  eyes  of  an]  inner 
love  of  pretence ;  and  with  a  kind  of  honest  and  boyish 
charlatanism  he  paraded  the  halls  of  the  Palace  in  the 
grim  but  not  original  character  of  the  reveller  who 
banqueted  with  his  good  friend  Death.  Antony  actually 
had  no  intention  of  dying  :  he  hoped  to  be  allowed  to  retire, 
like  his  late  colleague,  Lepidus,  the  third  triumvir,  into 
an  unmolested  private  life ;  but  the  paradoxical  situation 
in  which  he  now  found  himself,  that  of  a  state  prisoner 

*  Page  246. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  365 


sent  back,  as  it  were,  on  bail  to  the  luxuries  of  his  home, 
could  not  fail  to  be  turned  to  account  by  this  **  colossal 
child." 

Cleopatra,  on  the  other  hand,  was  prepared  for  all 
eventualities ;  and,  while  she  hoped  somehow  to  be  able 
to  win  her  way  out  of  her  dilemma,  she  did  not  fail  to 
make  ready  for  the  death  which  she  might  have  to  face. 
The  news  of  Octavian's  return  to  Asia  Minor  was  presently 
received  in  Alexandria,  and  she  must  have  felt  that  her 
chances  of  successfully  circumventing  her  difficulties 
were  remote.  She  therefore  busied  herself  in  making 
a  collection  of  all  manner  of  poisonous  drugs,  and  she 
often  went  down  to  the  dungeons  to  make  eager 
experiments  upon  the  persons  of  condemned  criminals. 
Anxiously  she  watched  the  death  -  struggles  of  the 
prisoners  to  whom  the  different  poisons  had  been 
administered,  discarding  those  drugs  which  produced 
pain  and  convulsions,  and  continuing  her  tests  and  trials 
with  those  which  appeared  to  offer  an  easy  liberation 
from  life.  She  also  experimented  with  venomous  snakes, 
subjecting  animals  and  human  beings  to  their  poisonous 
bites ;  and  Plutarch  tells  us  that  "  she  pretty  well  satis- 
fied herself  that  nothing  was  comparable  to  the  bite  of 
the  asp,  which,  without  causing  convulsion  or  groaning, 
brought  on  a  heavy  drowsiness  and  coma,  with  a  gentle 
perspiration  on  the  face,  the  senses  being  stupefied  by 
degrees,  and  the  victim  being  apparently  sensible  of  no 
pain,  but  only  annoyed  when  disturbed  or  awakened, 
like  one  who  is  in  a  profound  natural  sleep."  ^  If  the 
worst  came  to  the  worst,  she  decided  that  she  would 
take  her  life  in  this  manner ;  and  this  question  being 

1  I  fancy  that  the  word  asp  is  used  in  error,  for  I  should  think  it  much 
more  probable  that  the  deadly  little  horned  viper  was  meant. 


366     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


settled,  she  turned  her  undivided  attention  once  more  to 
the  problems  which  beset  her. 

By  May  Octavian  had  marched  into  Syria,  where  all 
the  garrisons  surrendered  to  him.  He  sent  Cornelius 
Callus  to  take  command  of  the  legions  which  had 
surrendered  to  him  in  North  Africa,  and  this  army  had 
now  taken  possession  of  Paraetonium,  where  Antony 
had  stayed  after  his  flight  from  Actium.  The  news 
that  this  frontier  fortress  had  passed  into  the  hands  of 
the  enemy  had  not  yet  reached  Alexandria,  but  that  of 
Octavian's  advance  through  Syria  was  already  known 
in  the  city,  and  must  have  caused  the  greatest  anxiety. 
Cleopatra  thereupon  decided  upon  a  bold  and  dignified 
course  of  action.  Towards  the  end  of  May  she  sent 
her  son  Cassarion,  with  his  tutor  Rhodon,  up  the  Nile 
to  Koptos,^  and  thence  across  the  desert  to  the  port  of 
Berenice,  where  as  many  ships  as  she  could  collect  were 
ordered  to  be  in  waiting  for  him.  The  young  Caesar 
travelled,  it  would  seem,  in  considerable  state,  and 
carried  with  him  a  huge  sum  of  money.  He  was 
expected  to  arrive  at  Berenice  by  about  the  end  of 
June ;  and  when,  towards  the  middle  of  July,'  the  mer- 
chants journeying  to  India  began  to  set  out  upon  their 
long  voyage,  it  was  arranged  that  he  should  also  set  sail 
for  those  distant  lands,  there  to  make  friends  with  the 
Kings  of  Hindustan,  and  perhaps  to  organise  the  great 
amalgamation  of  eastern  nations  of  which  Cleopatra 
had  so  often  dreamed.  She  herself  decided  to  remain 
at  Alexandria,  first  to  negotiate  with  Octavian  for  the 
retention  of  her  throne,  and  in  the  event  of  this  proving 

^  In  view  of  the  activities  of  the  Arabs  of  Petra,  it  is  unlikely  that  she  sent 
him  by  the  sea  route  from  Suez,  which  was  little  used  by  the  merchants. 
»  Page  1 1 8. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  367 


unsuccessful,  to  fight  him  to  the  death.  No  thought  of 
flight  entered  her  mind;^  and  though,  with  a  mother's 
soHcitous  care,  she  made  these  adventurous  arrange- 
ments for  the  safety  of  her  beloved  son,  it  does  not 
seem  to  have  occurred  to  her  to  accompany  him  to  the 
East,  where  she  might  have  expected  at  any  rate  to  find 
a  temporary  harbour  of  refuge.  Her  parting  with  him 
must  have  been  one  of  the  most  unhappy  events  of  her 
unfortunate  life.  For  his  safety  and  for  his  rights  she 
had  struggled  for  seventeen  years ;  and  now  it  was 
necessary  to  send  him  with  the  Indian  merchants  across 
perilous  seas  to  strange  lands  in  order  to  save  him  from 
the  clutches  of  his  successful  rival  Octavian,  while  she 
herself  remained  to  face  their  enemies  and  to  fight  for 
their  joint  throne.  Her  thoughts  in  these  days  of  distress 
were  turning  once  more  to  the  memory  of  the  boy's 
father,  the  great  Julius  Cassar,  for  often,  it  would  seem, 
she  gazed  at  his  pictures  or  read  over  again  the  letters 
which  he  had  written  to  her ;  and  now  as  she  despatched 
the  young  Caesar  upon  his  distant  voyage  to  those  lands 
which  had  always  so  keenly  interested  his  father,  she 
must  have  invoked  the  aid  of  that  deified  spirit  which 
all  the  Roman  world  worshipped  as  Divus  Julius,  and, 
in  an  agony  of  supplication,  must  have  implored  him  to 
come  to  the  assistance  of  his  only  earthly  son  and  heir. 

^  When  dying  she  is  said  to  have  regretted  that  she  did  not  seek  safety  in 
flight. 


368 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


OCTAVIAN'S  invasion  of  EGYPT  AND  THE  DEATH 
OF  ANTONY. 


The  historian  must  feel  some  reluctance  in  discrediting 
the  romantic  story  of  the  attachment  of  Cleopatra  and 
Antony  at  this  period ;  but  nevertheless  the  fact  cannot 
be  denied  that  they  had  now  decided  to  live  apart  from 
one  another,  and  there  seems  very  little  doubt  that  each 
regarded  the  other  with  distrust  and  suspicion.  Antony 
had  lived  so  long  alone  in  his  Timonium  that  he  was 
altogether  out  of  touch  with  his  wife's  projects ;  and 
she,  on  her  part,  had  not,  for  many  a  month,  admitted 
him  fully  into  her  confidence.  Their  relationship  was 
marked,  on  his  side,  by  mistrust,  and  on  hers,  by  dis- 
dainful pity ;  and  I  can  find  no  indication  of  that  roman- 
tic passage,  hand-in-hand  to  their  doom,  which  has 
come  to  be  regarded  as  the  grand  finale  of  their  tragic 
tale.  In  its  place,  however,  I  would  offer  the  spectacle 
of  the  ilonely  and  courageous  fight  made  by  the  little 
Queen  against  her  fate,  which  must  surely  command 
the  admiration  of  all  men.  Her  husband  having  so 
signally  failed  her,  the  whole  burden  of  the  government 
of  her  country  and  of  the  organisation  of  her  defence 
seems  to  have  fallen  upon  her  shoulders.  Day  and 
night  she  must  have  been  harassed  by  fearful  anxieties, 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  369 


and  haunted  by  the  thought  of  her  probable  doom ;  yet 
she  conducted  herself  with  undaunted  courage,  never 
deigning  to  consider  the  question  of  flight,  and  never 
once  turning  from  the  pathway  of  that  personal  and 
dynastic  ambition  which  seems  to  me  hardly  able  to  be 
distinguished  from  her  real  duty  to  her  country. 

When  Octavian  was  preparing  in  Syria,  during  the 
month  of  June  B.C.  30,  to  invade  Egypt,  both  Cleopatra 
and  Antony  attempted  to  open  negotiations  with  him. 
They  sent  a  certain  Greek  named  Euphronius,  who 
had  been  a  tutor  to  one  of  the  young  princes,  to  the 
enemy  bearing  messages  from  them  both.  Cleopatra 
asked  that,  in  return  for  her  surrender,  her  son  Caesarion 
might  be  allowed  to  retain  the  throne  of  Egypt ;  but 
Antony  prayed  only  that  he  might  be  allowed  to  live 
the  life  of  a  private  man,  either  at  Alexandria  or  else 
in  Athens.  With  this  embassy  Cleopatra  sent  her  crown, 
her  sceptre,  and  her  state  -  chariot,  in  the  hope  that 
Octavian  would  bestow  them  again  upon  her  son,  if 
not  upon  herself.  The  mission,  however,  was  a  partial 
failure.  Octavian  would  not  listen  to  any  proposals  in 
regard  to  Antony ;  but  to  Cleopatra  he  sent  a  secret 
message,  conveyed  by  one  of  his  freedmen,  named 
Thyrsus,  indicating  that  he  was  well-disposed  towards 
her,  and  would  be  inclined  to  leave  her  in  possession 
of  Egypt,  if  only  she  would  cause  Antony  to  be  put  to 
death.  Actually,  Octavian  had  no  intention  of  showing 
any  particular  mercy  to  Cleopatra,  and  his  suggestions 
were  intended  to  deceive  her.  He  seems  to  have  made 
up  his  mind  how  to  act.  Antony  would  have  to  be 
murdered  or  made  to  take  his  own  life :  it  would  be 
awkward  to  have  to  condemn  him  to  death  and  formally 
to  execute  him.    Caesarion,  his  rival,  would  also  have 

2  A 


370     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


to  meet  with  a  violent  end.  Cleopatra  ought  to  be 
captured  alive  so  that  he  might  display  her  in  his 
Triumph,  after  which  she  would  be  sent  into  exile,  while 
her  country  and  its  wealth  would  fall  into  his  hands, 
the  loot  serving  for  the  payment  of  his  troops.  In  all 
his  subsequent  dealings  with  the  Queen  we  shall  observe 
his  anxiety  to  take  her  alive,  while  towards  Antony  he 
will  be  seen  to  show  a  relentless  hostility. 

The  freedman  Thyrsus  was  a  personage  of  tact  and 
understanding,  and  with  Cleopatra  he  was  able  to  dis- 
cuss the  situation  in  all  its  aspects.  The  Queen  was 
striving  by  every  means  to  retain  her  throne,  and  she 
was  quite  capable  of  paying  Octavian  back  in  his  own 
coin,  deceiving  him  and  leading  him  to  suppose  that 
she  would  trust  herself  to  his  mercy.  She  showed  great 
attention  to  Thyrsus,  giving  him  lengthy  audiences,  and 
treating  him  with  considerable  honour ;  and  Antony,  not 
being  admitted  to  their  secret  discussions,  grew  daily 
more  angry  and  suspicious.  It  is  not  likely  that  Cleo- 
patra consented  to  the  proposed  assassination  of  her 
husband,  but  the  situation  was  such  that  she  could 
have  had  no  great  objection  to  the  thought  of  his  suicide, 
and  I  dare  say  she  discussed  quite  frankly  with  Thyrsus 
the  means  of  reminding  him  of  his  honourable  obliga- 
tions. It  is  said  by  Dion  Cassius  that  Octavian  actually 
conveyed  messages  of  an  amorous  nature  to  Cleopatra, 
but  this  is  probably  incorrect,  though  Thyrsus  may  well 
have  hinted  that  his  master's  heart  had  been  touched 
by  the  brave  manner  in  which  she  had  faced  her  mis- 
fortunes, and  that  he  was  eager  to  win  her  regard. 
Possibly  a  rumour  of  the  nature  of  their  conferences 
reached  Antony,  or  maybe  his  jealousy  was  aroused  by 
the  freedman's  confidential  attitude  to  the  Queen ;  for 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  371 


he  became  even  more  suspicious  than  he  had  been 
before,  and  he  appears  to  have  conducted  himself  as 
though  his  mind  were  in  a  condition  of  extreme  ex- 
asperation. Suddenly  he  caused  Thyrsus  to  be  seized 
by  some  of  his  men,  and  soundly  thrashed,  after  which 
he  sent  him  back  to  Octavian  with  a  letter  explaining 
his  action.  "The  man's  inquisitive,  impertinent  ways 
provoked  me,"  he  wrote,  "and  in  my  circumstances  I 
cannot  be  expected  to  be  very  patient.  But  if  it  offend 
you,  you  have  got  my  freedman,  Hipparchus,  with  you : 
hang  him  up  and  whip  him  to  make  us  even."  Hip- 
parchus had  probably  deserted  from  Antony  to  Octavian, 
and  the  whipping  of  Thyrsus  and  the  suggested  retalia- 
tion constituted  a  piece  of  grim  humour  which  seems 
to  have  appealed  at  once  to  Cleopatra's  instincts.  The 
audacity  of  the  action  was  of  the  kind  which  most 
delighted  her;  and  she  immediately  began  to  pay  more 
respect  to  her  husband,  who,  she  thus  found,  was  still 
capable  of  asserting  himself  in  a  kingly  manner.  Plutarch 
tells  us  that  to  clear  herself  of  his  suspicions,  which 
were  quite  unfounded,  she  now  paid  him  more  atten- 
tion and  humoured  him  in  every  way ;  and  it  seems 
that  her  change  of  attitude  put  new  courage  into  his 
heart,  substituting  a  brave  bearing  for  that  dejection 
of  carriage  which  had  lately  been  so  noticeable.  She 
seemed  anxious  to  prove  to  him  that  she  would  not 
play  him  false,  and  to  make  her  attitude  clear  to 
Octavian.  When  the  anniversary  of  her  birthday  had 
occurred  in  the  previous  winter  she  had  celebrated  it 
very  quietly ;  but  Antony's  birthday,  which  fell  at  about 
this  time  of  year,  she  celebrated  in  the  most  elab- 
orate manner,  giving  great  presents  to  all  those  who 
had  enjoyed  her  hospitality.    It  was  as  though  she 


372     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


desired  all  men  to  know  that  so  long  as  Antony  played 
the  man,  and  entered  into  this  last  fight  with  that  spirit 
of  adventure  which  always  marked  her  own  actions,  she 
would  stand  by  him  to  the  last ;  but  that  if  he  lacked 
the  spirit  to  make  a  bid  for  success,  then  she  could  but 
wish  him  well  out  of  her  way.  The  thrashing  of  Thyrsus 
proved  to  be  the  occasion  of  a  temporary  reconciliation 
between  the  Queen  and  her  husband,^  and  for  a  time 
Antony  acted  with  something  of  his  old  energy  and 
courage. 

Hearing  that  the  army  under  Cornelius  Callus  was 
marching  through  Cyrenaica,  the  modern  Tripoli,  towards 
the  western  frontier  of  Egypt,  he  hastened  with  a  few 
ships  to  Parsetonium  in  order  to  secure  the  defence  of 
that  place.  But  on  landing  and  approaching  the  walls 
of  the  fortress  and  calling  upon  the  commander  to  come 
out  to  him,  his  voice  was  drowned  by  a  blare  of  trumpets 
from  within.  A  few  minutes  later  the  garrison  made  a 
sortie,  chased  him  and  his  men  back  to  the  harbour,  set 
fire  to  some  of  his  ships,  and  drove  him  with  consider- 
able loss  from  their  shores.  On  returning  to  Alexandria 
he  heard  that  Octavian  was  approaching  Pelusium,  the 
corresponding  fortress  on  the  eastern  frontier  of  Egypt, 
which  was  under  the  command  of  a  certain  officer  named 
Seleucus ;  and  shortly  after  this,  towards  the  middle  of 
July,  the  news  arrived  that  that  stronghold  had  sur- 
rendered. 

Thereupon  Antony,  whose  nerves  were  in  a  very  highly- 
strung  condition,  furiously  accused  Cleopatra  of  having 
betrayed  him  by  arranging  secretly  with  Seleucus  to 
hand  over  the  fortress  to  Octavian  in  the  hope  of 
placating  the  approaching  enemy.     Cleopatra  denied 

1  This  seems  clearly  indicated  by  Plutarch. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  373 


the  accusation,  and,  to  prove  the  truth  of  her  words, 
she  caused  the  wife  and  children  of  Seleucus  to  be 
arrested  and  handed  over  to  her  husband,  that  he  might 
put  them  to  death  if  it  were  shown  that  she  had  had 
any  secret  correspondence  with  the  traitor,^  a  fact  which 
seems  to  prove  her  innocence  conclusively. 

Antony's  suspicions,  however,  unnerved  him  once  more, 
and  drove  the  flickering  courage  from  his  heart.  Dis- 
pirited and  agitated,  he  sent  Euphronius  to  Octavian 
a  second  time,  accompanied  on  this  occasion  by  the 
young  Antyllus,  and  provided  with  a  large  sum  of  money 
with  which  he  hoped  to  placate  his  enemy.  Octavian 
took  the  money  but  would  not  listen  to  the  pleading 
of  Antyllus  on  behalf  of  his  father.  The  embassy  must 
have  been  most  distasteful  to  Cleopatra,  who  could  not 
easily  understand  how  a  man  could  fall  so  low  as  to 
attempt  to  buy  off  his  enemy  with  gold — and  gold,  let  it 
be  remembered,  belonging  to  his  wife.  Her  surprise 
and  pain,  however,  must  have  been  greatly  increased 
when  she  discovered  that  Antony  had  next  sent  in  chains 
to  Octavian  a  certain  ex-senator,  named  Turullius,  who 
had  been  one  of  the  murderers  of  Julius  Caesar,  and  was, 
in  fact,  the  last  survivor  of  all  the  assassins,  each  one  of 
the  others  having  met  his  death  as  though  by  the  hand 
of  a  vengeful  Providence.  Turullius  had  now  come  into 
Antony's  power,  and,  since  Cleopatra's  son  was  Julius 
Caesar's  heir,  the  man  ought  to  have  been  handed  over 
to  the  Queen  for  punishment.  Instead,  however,  Antony 
had  sent  him  on  to  his  enemy  in  a  manner  which  could 
only  suggest  that  he  admitted  Octavian's  right  to  act 

^  Dion  Cassius  suggests  that  Cleopatra  did  attempt  to  play  into  Octavian's 
hands,  but  the  accusation  is  quite  unfounded,  and  is  an  obvious  one  to  make 
against  the  hated  enemy. 


374     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


as  the  Dictator's  representative.  Octavian  at  once  put 
Turullius  to  death,  thereby  performing  the  last  necessary 
act  of  vengeance  in  behalf  of  the  murdered  Caesar ;  but 
to  Antony  he  did  not  so  much  as  send  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  prisoner's  reception.  Receiving  no  assurance 
of  mercy,  Antony  appears  for  a  time  to  have  thought  of 
flying  to  Spain  or  to  some  other  country  where  he  could 
hide,  or  could  carry  on  a  guerilla  warfare,  until  some 
change  in  the  politics  of  Rome  should  enable  him  to 
reappear.  His  nobler  nature,  however,  at  length  asserted 
itself,  owing  to  the  example  set  by  Cleopatra,  who  was 
determined  now  to  defend  her  capital ;  and  once  more 
he  pulled  himself  together,  as  though  to  stand  by  the 
Queen's  side  until  the  end.  Their  position,  though  bad, 
was  not  desperate.  Alexandria  was  a  strongly  fortified 
city.  The  four  Roman  legions  which  had  been  left  in 
Egypt  during  the  war  in  Greece  were  still  in  the  city ; 
the  Macedonian  household  troops  were  also  stationed 
there ;  and  no  doubt  a  considerable  body  of  Egyptian 
soldiers  were  garrisoned  within  the  walls ;  while  in  the 
harbour  lay  the  fleet  which  had  retired  from  Actium, 
together  with  numerous  other  ships  of  war.  Thus  a 
formidable  force  was  in  readiness  to  defend  the  metro- 
polis, and  these  men  were  so  highly  paid  with  the  never- 
ending  wealth  of  the  Egyptian  treasury  that  they  were 
in  much  happier  condition  than  were  the  legionaries  of 
Octavian,  whose  wages  were  months  overdue. 

Cleopatra,  nevertheless,  did  not  expect  to  come  through 
the  ordeal  alive ;  and  although  Octavian  continued  to 
send  her  assurances  of  his  goodwill,  the  price  which  he 
asked  for  her  safety  was  invariably  the  head  of  Antony, 
and  this  she  was  not  prepared  to  pay.  I  do  not  think  that 
the  Queen's  temptation  in  this  regard  has  been  properly 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  375 


observed.  Dion  Cassius  emphatically  states  that  Octa- 
vian  promised  her  that  if  she  would  kill  Antony  he  would 
grant  her  both  personal  safety  and  the  full  maintenance 
of  her  undiminished  authority ;  and  Plutarch,  with  equal 
clearness,  says  that  Octavian  told  her  that  there  was 
no  reasonable  favour  which  she  might  not  expect  from 
him  if  only  she  would  put  Antony  to  death,  or  even 
expel  him  from  his  safe  refuge  in  Egypt.  Antony  had 
proved  himself  a  broken  reed ;  he  had  acted  in  a  most 
cowardly  manner;  he  was  generally  drunk  and  always 
unreliable ;  and  he  appeared  to  be  of  no  further  use  to 
her  or  to  her  cause.  Yet,  although  his  removal  meant 
immunity  to  herself,  she  was  too  loyal,  too  proud,  to 
sanction  his  assassination ;  and  her  action  practically 
amounted  to  this,  that  she  defied  Octavian,  telling  him 
that  if  he  wanted  her  drunken  husband's  useless  head 
he  must  break  down  the  walls  of  her  city  and  hunt 
for  it. 

In  accordance  with  the  custom  of  the  age  the  Queen 
had  built  herself,  during  recent  years,  a  tomb  and  mort- 
uary temple  wherein  her  body  should  rest  after  death 
and  her  spirit  should  receive  the  usual  sacrifices  and 
priestly  ministrations.  This  mausoleum,  according  to 
Plutarch,  was  surrounded  by  other  buildings,  apparently 
prepared  for  the  royal  family  and  for  members  of  the 
court.  They  were  not  set  up  within  the  precincts  of 
the  Sema,  or  royal  necropolis,  which  stood  at  the  side 
of  the  Street  of  Canopus,  but  were  erected  beside  the 
temple  of  Isis-Aphrodite,  a  building  rising  at  the  edge 
of  the  sea  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Lochias  Promon- 
tory. I  gather  from  the  remarks  of  Plutarch  that  the 
Queen's  tomb  actually  formed  part  of  the  temple  build- 
ings; and,  if  this  be  so,  Cleopatra  must  have  had  it  in 


376     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


mind  to  be  laid  to  rest  within  the  precincts  of  the  sanc- 
tuary of  the  goddess  with  whom  she  was  identified. 
Thus,  after  her  death,  the  worshippers  in  the  temple  of 
Isis  would  make  their  supplications,  as  it  were,  to  her  own 
spirit,  and  her  mortal  remains  would  become  holy  relics 
of  their  patron  goddess.^  The  mausoleum  was  remarkable 
for  its  height  and  for  the  beauty  of  its  workmanship. 
It  was  probably  constructed  of  valuable  marbles,  and 
appears  to  have  consisted  of  several  chambers.  On  the 
ground  floor  I  should  imagine  that  a  pillared  hall,  entered 
through  a  double  door  of  decorated  cedar-wood,  led  to 
an  inner  shrine  wherein  the  sarcophagus  stood  ready 
to  receive  the  Queen's  body;  and  that  from  this  hall  a 
flight  of  stone  stairs  ascended  to  the  upper  chambers, 
whose  flooring  was  formed  of  the  great  blocks  of  granite 
which  constituted  the  roofing  of  the  hall  below.  There 
was,  perhaps,  a  third  storey,  the  chambers  of  which, 
like  those  on  the  floor  below,  were  intended  to  be  used 
by  the  mortuary  priests  for  the  preparation  of  the  in- 
cense, the  offerings,  and  the  vestments  employed  in  their 
ceremonies.  The  large  open  casements  in  the  walls  of 
these  upper  chambers  must  have  overlooked  the  sea  on 
the  one  side  and  the  courts  of  the  Temple  of  Isis  on 
the  other ;  but,  as  was  usual  in  Egyptianised  buildings, 
there  were  no  windows  of  any  size  in  the  lower  hall 
and  sanctuary,  the  light  being  admitted  through  the 
doorway  and  through  small  apertures  close  to  the  ceil- 
ing. The  heat  of  these  July  days  did  not  penetrate  to 
any  uncomfortable  degree  into  this  stone-built  mauso- 
leum, and  the  cool  sea-wind  must  have  blown  continu- 

^  This  fact,  the  significance  of  which  has  been  overlooked,  is  an  interesting 
indication  of  Cleopatra's  definite  claim  to  be  a  manifestation  of  Venus- 
Aphrodite-Isis.    See  pp.  121,  144,  228. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  377 


ously  through  the  upper  rooms,  while  the  brilliant 
sunlight  outside  was  here  subdued  and  softened  in  its 
reflection  upon  the  marble  walls.  The  rhythmic  beat 
of  the  breakers  upon  the  stone  embankment  below  the 
eastern  windows,  and  the  shrill  cries  of  the  gulls,  echoed 
through  the  rooms ;  while  from  the  western  side  the 
chanting  of  the  priests  in  the  adjoining  temple,  and  the 
more  distant  hubbub  of  the  town,  intruded  into  the  cool 
recesses  of  these  wind-swept  chambers  like  the  sounds 
of  a  forsaken  world. 

Here  Cleopatra  decided  to  take  up  her  residence  so 
soon  as  Octavian  should  lay  successful  siege  to  the  walls 
of  the  city.  She  had  determined  that  in  the  event  of 
defeat  she  would  destroy  herself;  and,  with  this  prospect 
in  view,  she  now  caused  her  treasures  of  gold,  silver, 
ebony,  ivory,  and  cinnamon,  and  her  jewellery  of  pearls, 
emeralds,  and  precious  stones,  to  be  carried  into  the 
mausoleum,  where  they  were  laid  upon  a  pyre  of  faggots 
and  tow  erected  on  the  stone  floor  of  one  of  the  upper 
rooms.  If  it  should  be  necessary  for  her  to  put  an  end 
to  her  miseries,  she  had  decided  to  set  the  fangs  of  the 
deadly  asp  into  her  flesh,  and,  with  her  last  efforts,  to  fire 
the  tow,  thus  consuming  her  body  and  her  wealth  in  a 
single  conflagration.  Meanwhile,  however,  she  remained 
in  the  Palace,  and  busied  herself  in  the  preparations  of 
the  defence  of  the  city. 

In  the  last  days  of  July  Octavian's  forces  arrived  before 
the  walls,  and  took  up  their  quarters  in  and  around  the 
Hippodromos,  which  stood  upon  rocky  ground  to  the  east 
of  the  city.  Faced  with  the  crisis,  Antony  once  more 
showed  the  flickering  remnants  of  his  former  courage. 
Gathering  his  troops  together  he  made  a  bold  sortie  from 
the  city,  and  attacking  Octavian's  cavalry,  routed  them 


378     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


with  great  slaughter  and  chased  them  back  to  their 
camp.  He  then  returned  to  the  Palace,  where,  meeting 
Cleopatra  while  still  he  was  clad  in  his  dusty  and  blood- 
stained armour,  he  threw  his  arms  about  her  small  form 
and  kissed  her  in  the  sight  of  all  men.  He  then  com- 
mended to  her  especial  favour  one  of  his  officers  who  had 
greatly  distinguished  himself  in  the  fight ;  and  the  Queen 
at  once  presented  the  man  with  a  magnificent  helmet  and 
breastplate  of  gold.  That  very  night  this  officer  donned 
his  golden  armour  and  fled  to  the  camp  of  Octavian. 

Upon  the  next  morning  Antony,  with  somewhat  boyish 
effrontery,  sent  a  messenger  to  Octavian  challenging  him 
to  single  combat,  as  he  had  done  before  the  battle  of 
Actium ;  but  to  this  his  enemy  replied  with  the  scathing 
remark  that  "he  might  find  several  other  ways  of  ending 
his  life."  He  thereupon  decided  to  bring  matters  to  a 
conclusion  by  a  pitched  battle  on  land  and  sea,  rather 
than  await  the  issue  of  a  protracted  siege;  and,  Cleopatra 
having  agreed  to  this  plan,  orders  were  given  for  a  general 
engagement  upon  August  ist.  On  the  night  before  this 
date  Antony,  whose  courage  did  not  now  fail  him,  bade 
the  servants  help  him  liberally  at  supper  and  not  to  be 
sparing  with  the  wine,  for  that  on  the  morrow  they  might 
be  serving  a  new  master,  while  he  himself,  the  incarnation 
of  Bacchus,  the  god  of  wine  and  festivity,  lay  dead  upon 
the  battlefield.  At  this  his  friends  who  were  around  him 
began  to  weep,  but  Antony  hastily  explained  to  them  that 
he  did  not  in  the  least  expect  to  die,  but  hoped  rather  to 
lead  them  to  glorious  victory. 

Late  that  night,  when  complete  stillness  had  fallen 
upon  the  star-lit  city,  and  the  sea-wind  had  dropped, 
giving  place  to  the  hot  silence  of  the  summer  darkness, 
on  a  sudden  was  heard  the  distant  sound  of  pipes  and 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  379 


cymbals,  and  of  voices  singing  a  rollicking  tune.  Nearer 
they  came,  and  presently  the  pattering  of  dancing  feet 
could  be  heard,  while  the  shouts  and  cries  of  a  multitude 
were  blended  with  the  wild  music  of  a  bacchanal  song. 
The  tumultuous  procession,  as  Plutarch  described  it, 
seemed  to  take  its  course  right  through  the  middle  of 
the  city  towards  the  Gate  of  Canopus;  and  there  the 
commotion  was  most  loudly  heard.  Then,  suddenly, 
the  sounds  passed  out,  and  were  heard  no  more.  But 
all  those  who  had  listened  in  the  darkness  to  the  wild 
music  were  assured  that  they  had  heard  the  passage 
of  Bacchus  as  he  and  his  ghostly  attendants  marched 
away  from  the  army  of  his  fallen  incarnation,  and  joined 
that  of  the  victorious  Octavian.^ 

The  next  morning,  as  soon  as  it  was  light,  Antony 
marched  his  troops  out  of  the  eastern  gates  of  the  city, 
and  formed  them  up  on  rising  ground  between  the  walls 
and  the  Hippodromos,  a  short  distance  back  from  the 
sea.  From  this  position  he  watched  his  fleet  sail  out 
from  the  Great  Harbour  and  make  towards  Octavian's 
ships,  which  were  arrayed  near  the  shore,  two  or  three 
miles  east  of  the  city ;  but,  to  his  dismay,  the  Alexandrian 
vessels  made  no  attempt  to  deliver  an  attack  upon  the 
enemy  as  he  had  ordered  them  to  do.  Instead,  they 
saluted  Octavian's  fleet  with  their  oars,  and,  on  receiving 
a  similar  salutation  in  response,  joined  up  with  the  enemy, 
all  sailing  thereupon  towards  the  Great  Harbour.  Mean- 
while, from  his  elevated  position  Antony  saw  the  whole 
of  his  cavalry  suddenly  gallop  over  to  Octavian's  lines, 
and  he  thus  found  himself  left  only  with  his  infantry, 
who,  of  course,  were  no  match  for  the  enemy.    It  was 

1  The  sounds  perhaps  came  from  Octavian's  outposts,  which  were  just  outside 
the  Gate  of  Canopus. 


38o     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


useless  to  struggle  further,  and,  giving  up  all  hope,  he 
fled  back  into  the  city,  crying  out  that  Cleopatra  had 
betrayed  him.  As  he  rushed  into  the  Palace,  followed 
by  his  distracted  officers,  smiting  his  brow  and  calling 
down  curses  on  the  woman  who,  he  declared,  had  delivered 
him  into  the  hands  of  enemies  made  for  her  sake,  the 
Queen  fled  before  him  from  her  apartments,  as  though 
she  feared  that  in  his  fury  and  despair  he  might  cut  her 
down  with  his  sword.  Alone  with  her  two  waiting- 
women,  Iras  and  Charmion,  she  ran  as  fast  as  she  could 
through  the  empty  halls  and  corridors  of  the  Palace, 
and  at  length,  crossing  the  deserted  courtyard,  she 
reached  the  mausoleum  adjoining  the  temple  of  Isis. 
The  officials,  servants,  and  guards,  it  would  seem,  had 
all  fled  at  the  moment  when  the  cry  had  arisen  that 
the  fleet  and  the  cavalry  had  deserted ;  and  there  were 
probably  but  a  few  scared  priests  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
temple,  who  could  hardly  have  recognised  the  Queen 
as  she  panted  to  the  open  door  of  the  tomb,  deserted 
by  the  usual  custodians.  The  three  women  rushed  into 
the  dimly  -  lighted  hall,  bolting  and  barring  the  door 
behind  them,  and  no  doubt  barricading  it  with  benches, 
offering-tables,  and  other  pieces  of  sacerdotal  furniture. 
They  then  made  their  way  to  the  habitable  rooms  on 
the  upper  floor,  where  they  must  have  flung  themselves 
down  upon  the  rich  couches  in  a  sort  of  delirium  of 
horror  and  excitement,  Cleopatra  herself  preparing  for 
immediate  suicide.  From  the  window  they  must  have 
seen  some  of  Antony's  staff  hastening  towards  them, 
for  presently  they  were  able  to  send  a  message  to  tell 
him  that  the  Queen  was  on  the  point  of  killing  herself. 
After  a  short  time,  however,  when  the  tumult  in  her 
brain  had  somewhat  subsided,  Cleopatra  made  up  her 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  381 


mind  to  wait  awhile  before  taking  the  final  step,  so  that 
she  might  ascertain  Octavian's  attitude  towards  her;  and, 
having  determined  upon  this  course  of  action,  she  seems 
to  have  composed  herself  as  best  she  could,  while  through 
the  eastern  windows,  her  eyes  staring  over  the  summer 
sea,  she  watched  the  Egyptian  ships  and  those  of  the 
enemy  rowing  side  by  side  into  the  Great  Harbour. 

There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Cleopatra  had  be- 
trayed her  ,  husband,  or  that  she  was  in  any  way  a  party 
to  the  desertions  which  had  just  taken  place.  The  sudden 
collapse  of  their  resistance,  while  yet  it  was  but  mid- 
morning,  must  have  come  to  her  as  a  staggering  shock ; 
and  Antony's  accusations  were  doubtless  felt  to  be  only 
in  keeping  with  the  erratic  behaviour  which  had  char- 
acterised his  last  years.  On  the  previous  day  Antony 
had  offered  a  large  sum  of  money  to  every  one  of 
Octavian's  legionaries  who  should  desert ;  and  it  is 
more  than  likely  that  Octavian  had  made  a  similar 
offer  to  the  Egyptian  sailors  and  soldiers.  Only  a  year 
previously  these  sailors  had  fraternised  with  the  Romans 
of  the  Antonian  party  in  the  Gulf  of  Ambracia,  and  the 
latter,  having  deserted  to  Octavian  after  the  battle  of 
Actium,  were  now  present  in  large  numbers  amongst 
the  opposing  fleet.  The  Egyptians  were  thus  called 
upon  to  fight  with  their  friends  whose  hospitality  they 
had  often  accepted,  and  whose  fighting  qualities,  now 
that  they  were  combined  with  Octavian's  victorious 
forces,  they  had  every  reason  to  appreciate.  Their 
desertion,  therefore,  needed  no  suggestion  on  the  part 
of  Cleopatra:  it  was  almost  inevitable. 

Antony,  however,  was  far  too  distracted  and  over- 
wrought to  guard  his  tongue,  and  he  seems  to  have 
paced  his  apartments  in  the   Palace   in  a  condition 


382     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


bordering  upon  madness,  cursing  Cleopatra  and  her 
country,  and  calling  down  imprecations  upon  all  who 
had  deserted  him.  Presently  those  of  his  staff  who  had 
followed  the  Queen  to  her  mausoleum  brought  him  the 
news  that  she  had  killed  herself,  for  so  they  had  inter- 
preted her  message ;  and  instantly  Antony's  fury  seems 
to  have  left  him,  the  shock  having  caused  a  collapse  of 
his  energy.  At  first  he  was  probably  dazed  by  the 
tidings ;  but  when  their  full  significance  had  penetrated 
to  his  bewildered  brain  there  was  no  place  left  for  anger 
or  suspicion.  "  Now  Antony,"  he  cried,  "  why  delay 
longer  ?  Fate  has  taken  away  the  only  thing  for  which 
you  could  say  you  still  wanted  to  live."  And  with  these 
words  he  rushed  into  his  bedchamber,  eagerly  tearing  off 
his  armour,  and  calling  upon  his  slave  Eros  to  assist 
him.  Then,  as  he  bared  the  upper  part  of  his  body, 
he  was  heard  to  talk  aloud  to  the  Queen,  whom  he 
believed  to  be  dead.  "  Cleopatra,"  he  said,  "  I  am  not 
sad  to  be  parted  from  you  now,  for  I  shall  soon  be 
with  you  ;  but  it  troubles  me  that  so  great  a  general 
should  have  been  found  to  have  slower  courage  than  a 
woman."  Not  long  previously  he  had  made  Eros  solemnly 
promise  to  kill  him  when  he  should  order  him  to  do  so; 
and  now,  turning  to  him,  he  gave  him  that  order,  remind- 
ing him  of  his  oath.  Eros  drew  his  sword,  as  though  he 
intended  to  do  as  he  was  bid,  but  suddenly  turning  round, 
he  drove  the  blade  into  his  own  breast,  and  fell  dying 
upon  the  floor.  Thereupon  Antony  bent  down  over  him 
and  cried  to  him  as  he  lost  consciousness,  "Well  done, 
Eros !  Well  done  1  "  Then,  picking  up  the  sword,  he 
added,  "You  have  shown  your  master  how  to  do  what 
you  had  not  the  heart  to  do  yourself;"  and  so  saying, 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  383 


he  drove  the  sword  upwards  into  his  breast  from  below 
the  ribs,  and  fell  back  upon  his  bed. 

The  wound,  however,  was  not  immediately  mortal, 
and  presently,  the  flow  of  blood  having  ceased,  he  re- 
covered consciousness.  Some  of  the  Egyptian  servants 
had  gathered  around  him,  and  now  he  implored  them 
to  put  him  out  of  his  pain.  But  when  they  realised  that 
he  was  not  dead  they  rushed  from  the  room,  leaving  him 
groaning  and  writhing  where  he  lay.  Some  of  them 
must  have  carried  the  news  to  the  Queen  as  she  sat  at 
the  window  of  the  mausoleum,  for,  a  few  moments  later, 
a  certain  Diomedes,  one  of  her  secretaries,  came  to 
Antony  telling  him  that  she  had  not  yet  killed  herself, 
and  that  she  desired  his  body  to  be  brought  to  her. 
Thereupon  Antony  eagerly  gave  orders  to  the  servants 
to  carry  him  to  her,  and  they,  lifting  him  in  their  arms, 
placed  him  upon  an  improvised  stretcher  and  hurried 
with  him  to  the  mausoleum.  A  crowd  seems  now  to  have 
collected  around  the  door  of  the  building,  and  when 
the  Queen  saw  the  group  of  men  bringing  her  husband 
to  her,  she  must  have  feared  lest  some  of  them,  seeking 
a  reward,  would  seize  her  as  soon  as  they  had  entered 
her  stronghold  and  carry  her  alive  to  Octavian.  Perhaps, 
also,  it  was  a  difficult  matter  to  shoot  back  the  bolts  of 
the  door  which  in  her  excitement  she  had  managed  to 
drive  deep  into  their  sockets.  She,  therefore,  was  unable 
to  admit  Antony  into  the  mausoleum ;  and  there  he  lay 
below  her  window,  groaning  and  entreating  her  to  let 
him  die  in  her  arms.  In  the  words  of  Plutarch,  Cleopatra 
thereupon  "  let  down  ropes  and  cords  to  which  Antony 
was  fastened;  and  she  and  her  two  women,  the  only 
persons  she  had  allowed  to  enter  the  mausoleum,  drew 


384     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


him  up.  Those  who  were  present  say  that  nothing  was 
ever  more  sad  than  this  spectacle,  to  see  Antony,  covered 
all  over  with  blood  and  just  expiring,  thus  drawn  up, 
still  holding  up  his  hands  to  her,  and  raising  up  his  body 
with  the  little  force  he  had  left.  And,  indeed,  it  was  no 
easy  task  for  the  women ;  for  Cleopatra,  with  all  her 
strength  clinging  to  the  rope  and  straining  at  it  with  her 
head  bent  towards  the  ground,  with  difficulty  pulled  him 
up,  while  those  below  encouraged  her  with  their  cries  and 
joined  in  all  her  efforts  and  anxiety."  The  window  must 
have  been  a  considerable  distance  from  the  ground,  and  I 
do  not  think  that  the  three  women  could  ever  have  suc- 
ceeded in  raising  Antony's  great  weight  so  far  had  not 
those  below  fetched  ladders,  I  suppose,  and  helped  to 
lift  him  up  to  her,  thereafter,  no  doubt,  watching  the 
terrible  scene  from  the  head  of  these  ladders  outside  the 
window. 

Dragging  him  through  the  window  the  women  carried 
him  to  the  bed,  upon  which  he  probably  swooned  away 
after  the  agonies  of  the  ascent.  Cleopatra  was  distracted 
by  the  pitiful  sight,  and  fell  into  uncontrolled  weeping. 
Beating  her  breast  and  tearing  her  clothes,  she  made 
some  attempts,  at  the  same  time,  to  stanch  the  scarlet 
stream  which  flowed  from  his  wound ;  and  soon  her  face 
and  neck  were  smeared  with  his  blood.  Flinging  herself 
down  by  his  side  she  called  him  her  lord,  her  husband, 
and  her  emperor.  All  her  pity  and  much  of  her  old  love 
for  him  was  aroused  by  his  terrible  sufferings,  and  so 
intent  was  she  upon  his  pain  that  her  own  desperate 
situation  was  entirely  forgotten.  At  last  Antony  came 
to  his  senses,  and  called  for  wine  to  drink ;  after  which, 
having  revived  somewhat,  he  attempted  to  soothe  the 
Queen's  wild  lamentations,  telling  her  to  make  her  terms 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  385 


with  Octavian,  so  far  as  might  honourably  be  done,  and 
advising  her  to  trust  only  a  certain  Proculeius  amongst 
all  the  friends  of  the  conqueror.  "With  his  last  breath, 
he  begged  her,  says  Plutarch,  "not  to  pity  him  in  this 
last  turn  of  fate,  but  rather  to  rejoice  for  him  in  remem- 
brance of  his  past  happiness,  who  had  been  of  all  men 
the  most  illustrious  and  powerful,  and  in  the  end  had 
fallen  not  ignobly,  a  Roman  by  a  Roman  vanquished." 
With  these  words  he  lay  back  upon  the  bed,  and  soon 
had  breathed  his  last  in  the  arms  of  the  woman  whose 
interests  he  had  so  poorly  served,  and  whom  now  he  left 
to  face  alone  the  last  great  struggle  for  her  throne  and 
for  the  welfare  of  her  son. 


2  B 


386 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE  DEATH  OF  CLEOPATRA  AND  THE 
TRIUMPH  OF  OCTAVIAN. 

Cleopatra's  situation  was  at  this  moment  terrible  in 
the  extreme.  The  blood-stained  body  of  her  husband  lay 
stretched  upon  the  bed,  covered  by  her  torn  garments 
which  she  had  thrown  over  it.  Charmion  and  Iras,  her 
two  waiting-women,  were  probably  huddled  in  the  corner 
of  the  room,  beating  their  breasts  and  wailing  as  was  the 
Greek  habit  at  such  a  time.  Below  the  open  window  a 
few  Romans  and  Egyptians  appear  to  have  gathered  in 
the  sun-baked  courtyard;  and,  I  think,  the  ladders  still 
rested  against  the  wall  where  they  had  been  placed  by 
those  who  had  helped  to  raise  Antony  up  to  the  Queen. 
It  must  now  have  been  early  afternoon,  and  the  sunlight 
of  the  August  day,  no  doubt,  beat  into  the  room,  light- 
ing the  disarranged  furniture  and  revealing  the  wet 
blood-stains  upon  the  tumbled  carpets  over  which  the 
dying  man's  heavy  body  had  been  dragged.  From  the 
one  side  the  surge  of  the  sea  penetrated  into  the 
chamber;  from  the  other  the  shouts  of  Octavian's 
soldiers  and  the  clattering  of  their  arms  came  to 
Cleopatra's  ears,  telling  her  of  the  enemy's  arrival  in 
the  Palace.  She  might  expect  at  any  moment  to  be 
asked  to  surrender,  and  more  than  probably  an  attempt 
would  be  made  to  capture  her  by  means  of  an  entry 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  387 


through  the  window.  She  had  determined,  however, 
never  to  be  made  prisoner  in  this  manner,  and  she  had, 
no  doubt,  given  it  to  be  clearly  understood  that  any 
effort  to  seize  her  would  be  her  signal  for  firing  the 
funeral  pyre  which  had  been  erected  in  the  adjoining 
room  and  destroying  herself  upon  it.  To  be  made  a 
captive  probably  meant  her  degradation  at  Octavian's 
Triumph  and  the  loss  of  her  throne ;  but  to  surrender 
by  mutual  arrangement  might  assure  her  personal  safety 
and  the  continuity  of  her  dynasty.  With  this  in  view,  it 
seems  likely  that  she  now  armed  her  two  women  to  resist 
any  assault  upon  the  windows,  and  told  them  to  warn 
all  who  attempted  to  climb  the  ladders  that  she,  with 
her  priceless  jewellery  and  treasures,  would  be  engulfed 
in  the  flames  before  ever  they  had  reached  to  the  level 
of  her  place  of  refuge. 

Antony  had  been  dead  but  a  few  minutes  when 
Proculeius,  of  whom  he  had  spoken  to  Cleopatra  just 
before  he  expired,  arrived  upon  the  scene,  demanding, 
in  the  name  of  Octavian,  an  audience  with  the  Queen. 
He  knocked  upon  the  barred  door  of  the  main  entrance 
to  the  mausoleum,  calling  upon  Cleopatra  to  admit  him, 
and  the  sound  must  have  echoed  through  the  hall  below 
and  come  to  her  ears,  where  she  listened  at  the  top  of 
the  stairs,  like  some  ominous  summons  from  the  powers 
of  the  Underworld ;  but,  fearing  that  she  might  be  taken 
prisoner,  she  did  not  dare  open  to  him,  even  if  she  could 
have  shot  back  the  heavy  bolts,  and  she  must  have  paced 
to  and  fro  beside  her  husband's  corpse  in  an  agony  of 
indecision.  At  last,  however,  she  ran  down  the  marble 
staircase  to  the  dimly-lighted  hall  below,  and,  standing 
beside  the  barricade  which  she  had  constructed  against 
the  inner  side  of  the  door,  called  out  to  Proculeius  by 


388     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


name.  He  answered  her  from  the  outside,  and  in  this 
manner  they  held  a  short  parley  with  one  another,  she 
offering  to  surrender  if  she  could  receive  Octavian's 
word  that  her  Kingdom  of  Egypt  would  be  given  to  her 
son  Caesarion,  and  Proculeius  replying  only  with  the 
assurance  that  Octavian  was  to  be  trusted  to  act  with 
clemency  towards  her.  This  was  not  satisfactory  to  her, 
and  presently  the  Roman  officer  returned  to  his  master, 
leaving  Cleopatra  undisturbed  until  late  in  the  afternoon. 
He  described  the  Queen's  situation  to  Octavian,  and 
pointed  out  to  him  that  it  would  probably  not  be  difficult 
to  effect  an  entrance  to  the  mausoleum  by  means  of  the 
ladders,  and  that,  with  speed  and  a  little  manoeuvring, 
Cleopatra  could  be  seized  before  she  had  time  to  fire 
the  pyre.  Thereupon  Octavian  sent  him  with  Cornelius 
Gallus,^  who  had  now  reached  Alexandria,  to  attempt 
her  capture,  and  the  latter  went  straight  to  the  door 
of  the  mausoleum,  knocking  upon  it  to  summon  the 
Queen.  Cleopatra  at  once  went  down  the  stairs  and 
entered  into  conversation  with  Cornelius  Callus  through 
the  closed  door ;  and  it  would  seem  that  her  two  women, 
perhaps  eager  to  hear  what  was  said,  left  their  post  at 
the  window  of  the  upper  room  and  stood  upon  the  steps 
behind  her.  As  soon  as  the  Queen  was  heard  to  be 
talking  and  reiterating  her  conditions  of  surrender, 
Proculeius  ran  round  to  the  other  side  of  the  building, 
and,  adjusting  the  ladders,  climbed  rapidly  up  to  the 
window,  followed  by  two  other  Roman  officers.  Enter- 
ing the  disordered  room,  he  ran  past  the  dead  body  of 
Antony  and  hurried  down  the  stairs,  at  the  bottom  of 
which  he  encountered  Charmion  and  Iras,  while  beyond 
them  in  the  dim  light  of  the  hall  he  saw  Cleopatra 

1  Page  366. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  389 


standing  at  the  shut  door,  her  back  turned  to  him.  One 
of  the  women  uttered  a  cry,  when  she  saw  Proculeius, 
and  called  out  to  her  mistress :  "  Unhappy  Cleopatra, 
you  are  taken  prisoner !  "  At  this  the  Queen  sprang 
round,  and,  seeing  the  Roman  officer,  snatched  a  dagger 
from  its  sheath  at  her  waist  and  raised  it  for  the  stroke 
which  should  terminate  the  horror  of  her  life.  Pro- 
culeius, however,  was  too  quick  for  her.  He  sprang  at 
her  with  a  force  which  must  have  hurled  her  back  against 
the  door,  and,  seizing  her  wrist,  shook  the  dagger  from 
her  small  hand.  Then,  holding  her  two  arms  at  her 
side,  he  caused  his  men  to  shake  her  dress  and  to 
search  her  for  hidden  weapons  or  poison.  "For  shame, 
Cleopatra,"  he  said  to  her,  scolding  her  for  attempting 
to  take  her  life;  "you  wrong  yourself  and  Octavian 
very  much  in  trying  to  rob  him  of  so  good  an  oppor- 
tunity of  showing  his  clemency,  and  you  would  make 
the  world  believe  that  the  most  humane  of  generals  was 
a  faithless  and  implacable  enemy."  He  then  seems  to 
have  ordered  his  officers  to  remove  the  barriers  and  to 
open  the  door  of  the  mausoleum,  whereupon  Cornelius 
Gallus  and  his  men  were  able  to  assist  him  to  guard 
the  Queen  and  her  two  women.  Shortly  after  this, 
Octavian's  freedman,  Epaphroditus,  arrived  with  orders 
to  treat  Cleopatra  with  all  possible  gentleness  and 
civility,  but  to  take  the  strictest  precautions  to  prevent 
her  injuring  herself ;  and,  acting  on  these  instructions, 
the  Roman  officers  seem  to  have  lodged  the  Queen  under 
guard  in  one  of  the  upper  rooms  of  the  mausoleum,  after 
having  made  a  thorough  search  for  hidden  weapons  or 
poisons. 

Just  before  sunset  Octavian  made  his  formal  entry  into 
Alexandria.    He  wished  to  impress  the  people  of  the  city 


390     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 

with  the  fact  of  his  benevolent  and  peace-loving  nature, 
and  therefore  he  made  a  certain  Alexandrian  philosopher 
named  Areius,  for  whom  he  had  a  liking,  ride  with  him 
in  his  chariot.  As  the  triumphal  procession  passed  along 
the  beautiful  Street  of  Canopus,  Octavian  was  seen  by  the 
agitated  citizens  to  be  holding  the  philosopher's  hand 
and  talking  to  him  in  the  most  gentle  manner.  Stories 
soon  went  the  rounds  that  when  the  conqueror  had 
received  the  news  of  Antony's  death  he  had  shed  tears 
of  sorrow,  and  had  read  over  to  his  staff  some  of  his 
enemy's  furious  letters  to  him  and  his  own  moderate 
replies,  thus  showing  how  the  quarrel  had  been  forced 
upon  him.  Orders  now  seem  to  have  been  issued 
forbidding  all  outrage  or  looting;  and  presently  the 
frightened  Alexandrians  ventured  from  their  hiding- 
places,  most  of  the  local  magnates  being  ordered  to 
gather  themselves  together  in  the  Gymnasium.  Here, 
in  the  twilight,  Octavian  rose  to  address  them ;  and 
as  he  did  so,  they  all  prostrated  themselves  upon  the 
ground  before  him  in  abject  humiliation.  Commanding 
them  to  rise,  he  told  them  that  he  freely  acquitted  them 
of  all  blame :  firstly,  in  memory  of  the  great  Alexander 
who  had  founded  their  city ;  secondly,  for  the  sake  of  the 
city  itself  which  was  so  large  and  beautiful ;  thirdly,  in 
honour  of  their  god  Serapis ;  ^  and  lastly,  to  gratify  his 
dear  friend  Areius,  at  whose  request  he  was  about  to 
spare  many  lives. 

Having  thus  calmed  the  citizens,  who  now  must  have 
hailed  him  as  a  kind  of  deliverer  and  saviour,  he  retired 
to  his  quarters,  whence,  in  his  sardonic  manner,  he 
appears  to  have  issued  orders  for  the  immediate  slaughter 

^  Plutarch  does  not  give  Serapis  as  one  of  the  reasons  of  Octavian's 
clemency,  but  Dion  says  this  was  so. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  391 


of  those  members  of  the  court  of  Cleopatra  and  Antony 
for  whom  Areius  had  not  any  particular  Hking.  The 
unfortunate  Antyllus,  Antony's  son,  having  been  be- 
trayed to  Octavian  by  his  faithless  tutor  Theodorus, 
was  at  once  put  to  death  in  the  temple  erected  by 
Cleopatra  to  Julius  Caesar,  whither  he  had  fled.  As 
the  executioner  cut  off  the  boy's  head,  Theodorus  con- 
trived to  steal  a  valuable  jewel  which  hung  round  his 
neck ;  but  the  theft  was  discovered,  and  he  was  carried 
before  Octavian,  who  ordered  him  to  be  crucified  forth- 
with. A  strict  guard  was  set  over  the  two  children  of 
Cleopatra,  Ptolemy  and  Cleopatra  Selene,^  who  were 
still  in  Alexandria ;  and  Octavian  seems  to  have  given 
Cleopatra  to  understand  that  if  she  attempted  to  kill 
herself  he  would  put  these  two  children  to  death.  Thus 
he  was  able  to  assure  himself  that  she  would  refrain 
from  taking  her  life,  for,  as  Plutarch  says,  "  before  such 
engines  her  purpose  (to  destroy  herself)  shook  and  gave 
way." 

Antony's  body  was  now,  I  suppose,  prepared  for  burial. 
Though  mummification  was  still  often  practised  in  Alex- 
andria by  Greeks  and  Egyptians,  I  do  not  think  that 
any  elaborate  attempt  was  made  to  embalm  the  corpse, 
and  it  was  probably  ready  for  the  funeral  rites  within 
a  few  days.  Out  of  respect  to  the  dead  general  a  number 
of  Roman  officers  and  foreign  potentates  who  were  with 
Octavian's  army  begged  to  be  allowed  to  perform  these 
rites  at  their  own  expense ;  but  in  deference  to  Cleo- 
patra's wishes  the  body  was  left  in  the  Queen's  hands, 
and  instructions  were  issued  that  her  orders  were  to  be 
obeyed  in  regard  to  the  funeral.  Thus  Antony  was 
buried,  with  every  mark  of  royal  splendour  and  pomp, 

1  Page  355. 


392     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


in  a  tomb  which  had  probably  long  been  prepared  for 
him,  not  far  from  his  wife's  mausoleum.  Cleopatra 
followed  him  to  his  grave,  a  tragic,  piteous  little  figure, 
surrounded  by  a  group  of  her  lamenting  ladies ;  and, 
while  the  priests  burnt  their  incense  and  uttered  their 
droning  chants,  the  Queen's  fragile  hands  ruthlessly  beat 
her  breasts  as  she  called  upon  the  dead  man  by  his  name. 
In  these  last  terrible  hours  only  the  happier  character  of 
her  relationship  with  Antony  was  remembered,  and  the 
recollection  of  her  many  disagreements  with  him  were 
banished  from  her  mind  by  the  piteous  scenes  of  his 
death,  and  by  the  thought  of  his  last  tender  words  to  her 
as  he  lay  groaning  upon  her  bed.  In  her  extreme  lone- 
liness she  must  have  now  desired  his  buoyant  company  of 
earlier  years  with  an  intensity  which  she  could  hardly 
have  felt  during  his  lifetime ;  and  it  must  have  been 
difficult  indeed  for  her  to  refrain  from  putting  an  end  to 
her  miserable  life  upon  the  grave  of  her  dead  lover.  Yet 
Octavian's  threat  in  regard  to  her  children  held  her  hand; 
and,  moreover,  even  in  her  utter  distress,  she  had  not  yet 
abandoned  her  hope  of  saving  Egypt  from  the  clutch  of 
Rome.  Her  own  dominion,  she  knew,  was  over,  and 
the  best  fate  which  she  herself  could  hope  for  was  that 
of  an  unmolested  exile ;  yet  Octavian's  attitude  to  her 
indicated  in  every  way  that  he  would  be  willing  to  leave 
the  throne  to  her  descendants.  She  did  not  know  how 
falsely  he  was  acting  towards  her,  how  he  was  making 
every  effort  to  encourage  hope  in  her  heart  in  order  that 
he  might  bring  her  alive  to  Rome  to  be  exhibited  in 
chains  to  the  jeering  populace.  She  did  not  understand 
that  his  messages  of  encouragement,  and  even  of  affec- 
tion, to  her  were  written  with  sardonic  cunning,  that  his 
cheerful  assurances  in  regard  to  her  children  were 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  393 


made  at  a  time  when  he  was  probably  actually  sending 
messages  post-haste  to  Berenice  to  attempt  to  recall 
Cassarion  in  order  to  put  him  to  death.  She  did  not 
understand  Octavian's  character :  perhaps  she  had  never 
even  seen  him  ;  and  she  hoped  somehow  to  make  a  last 
appeal  to  him.  She  had  played  her  wonderful  game  for 
the  amalgamation  of  Egypt  and  Rome  into  one  vast 
kingdom,  ruled  by  her  descendants  and  those  of  the 
great  Julius  Caesar,  and  she  had  lost.  But  there  was 
yet  hope  that  out  of  the  general  wreck  she  might  save 
the  one  asset  with  which  she  had  started  her  operations 
— the  independent  throne  of  Egypt ;  and  to  accomplish 
this  she  must  live  on  for  a  while  longer,  and  must  face 
with  bravery  the  nightmare  of  her  existence. 

Coming  back,  after  the  funeral,  to  her  rooms  in  the 
mausoleum,  wherein  she  had  now  decided  to  take  up 
her  residence,  she  fell  into  a  high  fever ;  and  there  upon 
her  bed  she  lay  in  delirium  for  several  days.  She 
suffered,  moreover,  very  considerable  pain,  due  to  the 
inflammation  and  ulceration  caused  by  the  blows  which 
she  had  rained  upon  her  delicate  body  in  the  abandon- 
ment of  her  despair.  Over  and  over  again  she  was  heard 
to  utter  in  her  delirium  the  desolate  cry,  "  I  will  not 
be  exhibited  in  his  Triumph,"  and  in  her  distress  she 
begged  repeatedly  to  be  allowed  to  die.  At  one  time 
she  refused  all  food,  and  begged  her  doctor,  a  certain 
Olympus,  to  help  her  to  pass  quietly  out  of  the  world.^ 
Octavian,  however,  hearing  of  her  increasing  weakness, 
warned  her  once  more  that  unless  she  made  an  effort 
to  live  he  would  not  be  lenient  to  her  children ;  where- 
upon, as  though  galvanised  into  life  by  this  pressure  upon 

'  Plutarch  tells  us  that  this  doctor  wrote  a  full  account  of  these  last  scenes, 
from  which  he  evidently  quotes. 


394     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


her  maternal  instincts,  she  made  the  necessary  struggle 
to  recover,  obediently  swallowing  the  medicine  and 
stimulants  which  were  given  to  her. 

Thus  the  hot  August  days  passed  by,  and  at  length  the 
Queen,  now  fragile  and  haggard,  was  able  to  move  about 
once  more.  Her  age  at  this  time  was  thirty-eight  years, 
and  she  must  have  lost  that  freshness  of  youth  which  had 
been  her  notable  quality ;  but  her  brilliant  eyes  had  now 
perhaps  gained  in  wonder  by  the  pallor  of  her  face,  and 
the  careless  arrangement  of  her  dark  hair  must  have 
enhanced  her  tragic  beauty.  The  seductive  tones  of  her 
voice  could  not  have  been  diminished,  and  that  peculiar 
quality  of  elusiveness  may  well  have  been  accentuated  by 
her  illness  and  by  the  nervous  strain  through  which  she 
had  passed.  Indeed,  her  personal  charm  was  still  so 
great  that  a  certain  Cornelius  Dolabella,  one  of  the 
Roman  officers  whose  duty  it  was  to  keep  watch  over 
her,  speedily  became  her  devoted  servant,  and  was  in- 
duced to  promise  that  he  would  report  to  her  any  plans 
in  regard  to  her  welfare  which  Octavian  should  disclose. 

On  August  28th,  as  she  lay  upon  a  small  pallet-bed  in 
the  upper  room,  gazing  in  utter  desolation,  as  I  imagine, 
over  the  blue  waters  of  the  Mediterranean,  her  women 
ran  in  to  her  to  tell  her  that  Octavian  had  come  to  pay 
his  respects  to  her.  He  had  not  yet  visited  her,  for  he 
had  very  correctly  avoided  her  previous  to  and  during 
Antony's  funeral ;  and  since  that  time  she  had  been  too 
ill  to  receive  him.  Now,  however,  she  was  convalescent, 
and  the  conqueror  had  arrived  unexpectedly  to  con- 
gratulate her,  as  etiquette  demanded,  upon  her  recovery. 
He  walked  into  the  room  before  the  Queen  had  time  to 
prepare  herself;  and  Plutarch  describes  how,  "on  his 
entering,  she  sprang  from  her  bed,  having  nothing  on 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  395 


but  the  one  garment  next  her  body,  and  flung  herself 
at  his  feet,  her  hair  and  face  looking  wild  and  disfigured, 
her  voice  trembling,  and  her  eyes  sunken  and  dark.  The 
marks  of  the  blows  which  she  had  rained  upon  herself 
were  visible  about  her  breast,  and  altogether  her  whole 
person  seemed  to  be  no  less  afflicted  than  was  her  spirit. 
But  for  all  this,  her  old  charm  and  the  boldness  of  her 
youthful  beauty  had  not  wholly  left  her,  and,  in  spite 
of  her  present  condition,  still  shone  out  from  within  and 
allowed  itself  to  appear  in  all  the  expressions  of  her 
face." 

The  picture  of  the  distraught  little  Queen,  her  dark 
hair  tumbled  over  her  face,  her  loose  garment  slipping 
from  her  white  shoulders,  as  she  crouches  at  the  feet  of 
this  cold,  unhealthy-looking  man,  who  stands  somewhat 
awkwardly  before  her,  is  one  which  must  distress  the 
mind  of  the  historian  who  has  watched  the  course  of 
Cleopatra's  warfare  against  the  representative  of  Rome. 
Yet  in  this  scene  we  are  able  to  discern  her  but  stripped 
of  the  regal  and  formal  accessories  which  have  often 
caused  her  to  appear  more  imposing  and  awe-inspiring 
than  actually  her  character  justified.  She  was  essentially 
a  woman,  and  now,  in  her  condition  of  physical  weak- 
ness, she  acted  precisely  as  any  other  overwrought 
member  of  her  sex  might  have  behaved  under  similar 
circumstances.  Her  wonderful  pluck  had  almost  deserted 
her,  and  her  persistence  of  purpose  was  lost  in  the  wreck 
of  all  her  hopes.  We  have  often  heard  her  described  as 
a  calculating  woman,  who  lived  her  life  in  studied  and 
callous  voluptuousness,  and  who  died  in  unbending  dig- 
nity; but,  as  I  have  tried  to  indicate  in  this  volume,  the 
Queen's  nature  was  essentially  feminine — highly-strung, 
and  liable  to  rapid  changes  from  joy  to  despair.  Keen, 


396     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


independent,  and  fearless  though  she  was,  she  was  never 
a  completely  self-reliant  woman,  and  in  circumstances 
such  as  those  which  are  now  being  recorded  we  obtain 
a  view  of  her  character,  which  shows  her  to  have  been 
capable  of  needing  desperately  the  help  and  sympathy 
of  others. 

Octavian  raised  her  to  her  feet,  and,  assisting  her  once 
more  on  to  her  bed,  sat  himself  down  beside  her.  At 
first  she  talked  to  him  in  a  rambling  manner,  justifying 
her  past  movements,  and  attributing  certain  actions, 
such,  I  suppose,  as  her  hiding  in  the  mausoleum,  to  her 
fear  of  Antony ;  but  when  Octavian  pointed  out  to  her 
the  discrepancies  in  her  statements  she  made  no  longer 
any  attempt  to  excuse  her  conduct,  begging  him  only 
not  to  take  her  throne  from  her  son,  and  telling  him  that 
she  was  willing  enough  to  live  if  only  he  would  insure  the 
safety  of  her  country  and  dynasty,  and  would  be  merciful 
to  her  children.  Then,  rising  from  the  bed,  she  brought 
to  Octavian  a  number  of  letters  written  to  her  by  Julius 
Caesar,  and  also  one  or  two  portraits  of  him  painted  for 
her  during  his  lifetime.  "  You  know,"  she  said,^  "  how 
much  I  was  with  your  father,^  and  you  are  aware  that  it 
was  he  who  placed  the  crown  of  Egypt  upon  my  head ; 
but,  so  that  you  may  know  something  of  our  private 
affairs,  please  read  these  letters.  They  are  all  written 
to  me  with  his  own  hand." 

Octavian  must  have  turned  the  letters  over  with  some 
curiosity,  but  he  does  not  seem  to  have  shown  a  desire 
to  read  them;  and,  seeing  this,  Cleopatra  cried:  "Of 
what  use  are  all  these  letters  to  me  ?    Yet  I  seem  to  see 

'  Dion  Cassius. 

*  Octavian  now  always  spoke  of  the  Dictator  as  his  father,  and  he  called 
himself  "  Caesar." 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  397 


him  living  again  in  them."  The  thought  of  her  old  lover 
and  friend,  and  the  memories  recalled  by  the  letters  and 
portraits  before  her  seem  to  have  unnerved  her ;  and, 
being  in  so  overwrought  and  weak  a  condition,  she  now 
broke  down  completely.  Between  her  sobs  she  was 
heard  to  exclaim,  "  Oh,  I  wish  to  God  you  were  still 
alive,"  as  though  referring  to  Julius  Caesar. 

Octavian  appears  to  have  consoled  her  as  best  he 
could ;  and  at  length  she  seems  to  have  agreed  that,  in 
return  for  his  clemency,  she  would  place  herself  entirely 
in  his  hands,  and  would  hand  over  to  him  without  reserve 
all  her  property.  One  of  her  stewards,  named  Seleucus, 
happened  to  be  awaiting  her  orders  in  the  mausoleum  at 
the  time,  and,  sending  for  him,  she  told  him  to  hand  over 
to  Octavian  the  list  which  they  together  had  lately  made 
of  her  jewellery  and  valuables,  and  which  now  lay  with 
her  other  papers  in  the  room.  Seleucus  seems  to  have 
read  the  document  to  Octavian ;  but,  wishing  to  in- 
gratiate himself  with  his  new  master,  and  thinking  that 
loyalty  to  Cleopatra  no  longer  paid,  he  volunteered  the 
information  that  various  articles  were  omitted  from  the 
list,  and  that  the  Queen  was  purposely  secreting  these 
for  her  own  advantage.  At  this  Cleopatra  sprang  from 
her  bed,  and,  dashing  at  the  astonished  steward,  seized 
him  by  the  hair,  shook  him  to  and  fro,  and  furiously 
slapped  his  face.  So  outraged  and  overwrought  was 
she  that  she  might  well  have  done  the  man  some  serious 
injury  had  not  Octavian,  who  could  not  refrain  from 
laughing,  withheld  her  and  led  her  back  to  her  seat. 
"  Really  it  is  very  hard,"  she  exclaimed  to  her  visitor, 

when  you  do  me  the  honour  to  come  to  see  me  in  this 
condition  I  am  in,  that  I  should  be  accused  by  one  of  my 
own  servants  of  setting  aside  some  women's  trinkets — 


398     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


not  so  as  to  adorn  my  unhappy  self,  you  may  be  sure, 
but  so  that  I  might  have  some  little  presents  by  me  to 
give  to  your  sister  Octavia  and  your  wife  Livia,  that  by 
their  intercession  I  might  hope  to  find  you  to  some  extent 
disposed  to  mercy." 

Caesar  was  delighted  to  hear  her  talk  in  this  manner, 
for  it  seemed  to  indicate  that  she  was  desirous  of  con- 
tinuing to  live ;  and  he  was  most  anxious  that  she  should 
do  so,  partly,  as  I  have  said,  that  he  might  have  the  satis- 
faction of  parading  her  in  chains  through  the  streets  of 
Rome,  and  partly,  perhaps,  in  order  to  show,  thereafter, 
his  clemency  and  his  respect  to  the  late  Dictator's 
memory  by  refraining  from  putting  her  to  death.  He 
therefore  told  her  that  she  might  dispose  of  these  articles 
of  jewellery  as  she  liked;  and,  promising  that  his  usage 
of  her  would  be  merciful  beyond  her  expectation,  he 
brought  his  visit  to  a  close,  well  satisfied  that  he  had 
won  her  confidence,  and  that  he  had  entirely  deceived 
her.  In  this,  however,  he  was  mistaken,  and  he  was 
himself  deceived  by  her. 

Cleopatra  had  observed  from  his  words  and  manner 
that  he  wished  to  exhibit  her  in  Rome,  and  that  he  had 
little  intention  of  allowing  her  son  Caesarion  to  reign  in 
her  place,  but  purposed  to  seize  Egypt  on  behalf  of 
Rome.  Far  from  reassuring  her,  the  interview  had  left 
her  with  the  certainty  that  the  doom  of  the  dynasty  was 
sealed ;  and  already  she  saw  clearly  that  there  was 
nothing  left  for  which  to  live.  Presently  a  messenger 
from  Cornelius  Dolabella  came  to  her,  and  broke  the 
secret  news  to  her  that  Octavian,  finding  her  now  re- 
covered from  her  illness,  had  decided  to  ship  her  off  to 
Rome  with  her  two  children  in  three  days'  time  or  less. 
It  is  possible,  also,  that  Dolabella  was  already  able  to 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  399 


tell  her  that  there  was  no  hope  for  her  son  Csesarion,  for 
that  Octavian  had  decided  to  kill  him  so  soon  as  he 
could  lay  hands  on  him,  realising,  at  the  instance  of  his 
Alexandrian  friend  Areius,  that  it  was  unwise  to  leave  at 
large  one  who  claimed  to  be  the  rightful  successsor  of  the 
great  Dictator. 

On  hearing  this  news  the  Queen  determined  to  kill 
herself  at  once,  for  her  despair  was  such  that  the  fact 
of  existence  had  become  intolerable  to  her.  In  her  mind 
she  must  have  pictured  Octavian's  Triumph  in  Rome,  in 
which  she  and  her  children  would  figure  as  the  chief 
exhibits.  She  would  be  led  in  chains  up  to  the  Capitol, 
even  as  she  had  watched  her  sister  Arsinoe  paraded  in 
the  Triumph  of  Julius  Caesar;  and  she  could  hear  in 
imagination  the  jeers  and  groans  of  the  townspeople,  who 
would  not  fail  to  remind  her  of  her  former  boast  that  she 
would  one  day  sit  in  royal  judgment  where  then  she 
would  be  standing  in  abject  humiliation.  The  thought, 
which  of  itself  was  more  than  she  could  bear,  was  coupled 
with  the  certainty  that,  were  she  to  prolong  her  life,  she 
would  have  to  suffer  also  the  shock  of  her  beloved 
son's  cruel  murder,  for  already  his  death  seemed  in- 
evitable. 

Having  therefore  made  up  her  mind,  she  sent  a  message 
to  Octavian  asking  his  permission  for  her  to  visit  Antony's 
tomb,  in  order  to  make  the  usual  oblations  to  his  spirit. 
This  was  granted  to  her,  and  upon  the  next  morning, 
August  29th,  she  was  carried  in  her  litter  to  the  grave, 
accompanied  by  her  women.  Arriving  at  the  spot  she 
threw  herself  upon  the  gravestone,  embracing  it  in  a 
very  passion  of  woe.  "  Oh,  dearest  Antony,"  she  cried, 
the  tears  streaming  down  her  face,  "  it  is  not  long  since 
with  these  hands  I  buried  you.    Then  they  were  free ; 


400     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


now  I  am  a  captive ;  and  I  pay  these  last  duties  to  you 
with  a  guard  upon  me,  for  fear  that  my  natural  griefs  and 
sorrows  should  impair  my  servile  body  and  make  it  less 
fit  to  be  exhibited  in  their  Triumph  over  you.  Expect  no 
further  offerings  or  libations  from  me,  Antony ;  these  are 
the  last  honours  that  Cleopatra  will  be  able  to  pay  to 
your  memory,  for  she  is  to  be  hurried  far  away  from  you. 
Nothing  could  part  us  while  we  lived,  but  death  seems  to 
threaten  to  divide  us.  You,  a  Roman  born,  have  found  a 
grave  in  Egypt.  I,  an  Egyptian,  am  to  seek  that  favour, 
and  none  but  that,  in  your  country.  But  if  the  gods 
below,  with  whom  you  now  are  dwelling,  can  or  will  do 
anything  for  me,  since  those  above  have  betrayed  us,  do 
not  allow  your  living  wife  to  be  abandoned,  let  me  not  be 
led  in  Triumph  to  your  shame  ;  but  hide  me,  hide  me : 
bury  me  here  with  you.  For  amongst  all  my  bitter  mis- 
fortunes nothing  has  been  so  terrible  as  this  brief  time 
that  I  have  lived  away  from  you."  ^ 

For  some  moments  she  lay  upon  the  tombstone  pas- 
sionately kissing  it,  her  past  quarrels  with  the  dead  man 
all  forgotten  in  her  desire  for  his  companionship  now  in 
her  loneliness,  and  only  her  earlier  love  for  him  being 
remembered  in  the  tumult  of  her  mind.  Then,  rising 
and  placing  some  wreaths  of  flowers  upon  the  grave, 
she  entered  her  litter  and  was  carried  back  to  the 
mausoleum. 

As  soon  as  she  had  arrived  she  ordered  her  bath  to 
be  prepared,  and  having  been  washed  and  scented,  her 
hair  being  carefully  plaited  around  her  head,  she  lay 
down  upon  a  couch  and  partook  of  a  sumptous  meal. 

'  Plutarch.  It  is  very  probable  that  Cleopatra's  doctor,  Olympus,  was  by 
her  side,  and  afterwards  wrote  these  words  down  in  the  diary  which  we  know 
Plutarch  used. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  401 


After  this  she  wrote  a  short  letter  to  Octavian,  asking 
that  she  might  be  buried  in  the  same  tomb  with  Antony  ; 
and,  this  being  despatched,  she  ordered  everybody  to 
leave  the  mausoleum  with  the  exception  of  Charmion 
and  Iras,  as  though  she  did  not  wish  to  be  disturbed  in 
her  afternoon's  siesta.  The  doors  were  then  closed,  and 
the  sentries  mounted  guard  on  the  outside  in  the  usual 
manner. 

When  Octavian  read  the  letter  which  Cleopatra's 
messenger  had  brought  him,  he  realised  at  once  what 
had  happened,  and  hastened  to  the  mausoleum.  Chang- 
ing his  mind,  however,  he  sent  some  of  his  officers  in  his 
place,  who,  on  their  arrival,  found  the  sentries  appre- 
hensive of  nothing.  Bursting  open  the  door  they  ran 
up  the  stairs  to  the  upper  chamber,  and  immediately 
their  worst  fears  were  realised.  Cleopatra,  already  dead, 
lay  stretched  upon  her  bed  of  gold,  arrayed  in  her 
Grecian  robes  of  state,  and  decked  with  all  her  regal 
jewels,  the  royal  diadem  of  the  Ptolemies  encircling  her 
brow.  Upon  the  floor  at  her  feet  Iris  was  just  breathing 
her  last;  and  Charmion,  scarce  able  to  stand,  was 
tottering  at  the  bedside,  trying  to  adjust  the  Queen's 
crown. 

One  of  the  Roman  officers  exclaimed  angrily : 
"Charmion,  was  this  well  done  of  your  lady?" 
Charmion,  supporting  herself  beside  the  royal  couch, 
turned  her  ashen  face  towards  the  speaker.  "  Very  well 
done,"  she  gasped,  "  and  as  befitted  the  descendant  of  so 
many  Kings " ;  and  with  these  words  she  fell  dead 
beside  the  Queen. 

The  Roman  officers,  having  despatched  messengers  to 
inform  Octavian  of  the  tragedy,  seem  to  have  instituted 
an  immediate  inquiry  as  to  the  means  by  which  the 

2  c 


402     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


deaths  had  taken  place. ^  At  first  the  sentries  could 
offer  no  information,  but  at  length  the  fact  was  elicited 
that  a  peasant  carrying  a  basket  of  figs  had  been  allowed 
to  enter  the  mausoleum,  as  it  was  understood  that  the 
fruit  was  for  the  Queen's  meal.  The  soldiers  declared 
that  they  had  lifted  the  leaves  with  which  the  fruit  was 
covered  and  had  remarked  on  the  fineness  of  the  figs, 
whereupon  the  peasant  had  laughed  and  had  invited 
them  to  take  some,  which  they  had  refused  to  do.  It 
was  perhaps  known  that  Cleopatra  had  expressed  a 
preference  for  death  by  the  bite  of  an  asp,^  and  it  was 
therefore  thought  that  perhaps  one  of  these  small  snakes 
had  been  brought  to  her  concealed  under  the  figs. 
A  search  was  made  for  the  snake,  and  one  of  the 
soldiers  stated  that  he  thought  he  saw  a  snake-track 
leading  from  the  mausoleum  over  the  sand  towards  the 
sea.  An  attendant  who  had  admitted  the  peasant  seems 
now  to  have  reported  that  when  Cleopatra  saw  the  figs 
she  exclaimed,  "  So  here  it  is  !  "  a  piece  of  evidence  which 
gave  some  colour  to  the  theory.  Others  suggested  that 
the  asp  had  been  kept  at  hand  for  some  days  in  a  vase, 
and  that  the  Queen  had,  at  the  end,  teased  it  until  she 
had  made  it  strike  at  her.  An  examination  of  the  body 
showed  nothing  except  two  very  slight  marks  upon  the 
arm,  which  might  possibly  have  been  caused  by  the  bite 
of  a  snake.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  suggested  that 
the  Queen  might  have  carried  some  form  of  poison  in 
a  hollow  hair-comb  or  other  similar  article  ;  and  this 
theory  must  have  received  some  support  from  the  fact 
that  there  were  the  three  deaths  to  account  for. 

'  The  following  evidence  as  to  the  manner  of  the  Queen  s  death  is  given  by 
Phitarch,  and  it  is  clear  that  it  was  the  result  of  an  investigation  such  as  I  liave 
described. 

2  Page  365. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  403 


Presently  Octavian  seems  to  have  arrived,  and  he  at 
once  sent  for  snake-doctors,  Psylli,  to  suck  the  poison 
from  the  wound ;  but  they  came  too  late  to  save  her. 
Though  Octavian  expressed  his  great  disappointment 
at  her  death,  he  could  not  refrain  from  showing  his 
admiration  for  the  manner  in  which  it  had  occurred. 
Personally,  he  appears  to  have  favoured  the  theory  that 
her  end  was  caused  by  the  bite  of  the  asp,  and  afterwards 
in  his  Triumph  he  caused  a  figure  of  Cleopatra  to  be 
exhibited  with  a  snake  about  her  arm.  Though  it  is 
thus  quite  impossible  to  state  with  certainty  how  it 
occurred,  there  is  no  reason  to  contradict  the  now 
generally  accepted  story  of  the  introduction  of  the  asp 
in  the  basket  of  figs.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Queen 
had  other  poisons  in  her  possession,  which  were  perhaps 
used  by  her  two  faithful  women ;  and  it  is  to  be  under- 
stood that  the  strategy  of  the  figs,  if  employed  at  all,  was 
resorted  to  only  in  order  that  she  herself  might  die  by 
the  means  which  her  earlier  experiments  had  commended 
to  her. 

Octavian  now  gave  orders  that  the  Queen  should  be 
buried  with  full  honours  beside  Antony,  where  she  had 
wished  to  lie.  He  had  sent  messengers,  it  would  seem, 
to  Berenice  to  attempt  to  stop  the  departure  of  Cassarion 
for  India,  having  heard,  no  doubt,  that  the  young  man 
had  decided  to  remain  in  that  town  until  the  last  possible 
moment.  His  tutor,  Rhodon,  counselled  him  to  trust 
himself  to  Octavian ;  and,  acting  upon  this  advice,  they 
returned  to  Alexandria,  where  they  seem  to  have  arrived 
very  shortly  after  Cleopatra's  death.  Octavian  immediately 
ordered  Cassarion  to  be  executed,  his  excuse  being  that 
it  was  dangerous  for  two  Ccesars  to  be  in  the  world 
together;    and  thus  died   the  last   of  the  Ptolemaic 

2  c  2 


404     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Pharaohs  of  Egypt,  the  son  and  only  real  heir  of  the 
great  Julius  Caesar.  The  two  other  children  who  re- 
mained in  the  Palace,  Ptolemy  and  Cleopatra  Selene, 
were  shipped  off  to  Rome  as  soon  as  possible,  and 
messengers  seem  to  have  been  despatched  to  Media  to 
take  possession  of  Alexander  Helios  who  had  probably 
been  sent  thither,  as  we  have  already  seen. 

In  my  opinion,  Octavian  now  decided  to  take  over 
Egypt  as  a  kind  of  personal  possession.  He  did  not 
wish  to  cause  a  revolution  in  the  country  by  proclaiming 
it  a  Roman  province ;  and  he  seems  to  have  appreciated 
the  ceaseless  efforts  of  Cleopatra  and  her  subjects  to 
prevent  the  absorption  of  the  kingdom  in  this  manner. 
He  therefore  decided  upon  a  novel  course  of  action. 
While  not  allowing  himself  to  be  crowned  as  actual 
King  of  Egypt,  he  assumed  that  office  by  tacit  agreement 
with  the  Egyptian  priesthood.  He  seems  to  have  claimed, 
in  fact,  to  be  heir  to  the  throne  of  the  Ptolemies.  Julius 
Caesar  had  been  recognised  as  Cleopatra's  husband  in 
Egypt,  and  he,  Octavian,  was  Caesar's  adopted  son  and 
heir.  After  the  elimination  of  Cleopatra's  three  surviving 
children  he  was,  therefore,  the  rightful  claimant  to  the 
Egyptian  throne.  The  Egyptians  at  once  accepted  him 
as  their  sovereign,  and  upon  the  walls  of  their  temples 
we  constantly  find  his  name  inscribed  in  hieroglyphics 
as  "  King  of  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt,  Son  of  the  Sun, 
Caesar,  living  for  ever,  beloved  of  Ptah  and  Isis."  He  is 
also  called  by  the  title  Autocrator,  which  he  took  over 
from  Antony,  and  which,  in  the  Egyptian  inscriptions, 
was  recognised  as  a  kind  of  hereditary  royal  name,  being 
written  within  the  Pharaonic  cartouche.^  His  descendants, 

'  In  hieroglyphs  this  reads  Aiifk'r'd'r  ICs'i's. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  405 


the  Emperors  of  Rome,  were  thus  successively  Kings  of 
Egypt,  as  though  heads  of  the  reigning  dynasty ;  and 
each  Emperor  as  he  ascended  the  Roman  throne  was 
hailed  as  Monarch  of  Egypt,  and  was  called  in  all 
Egyptian  inscriptions  "  Pharaoh  "  and  "  Son  of  the  Sun." 
The  Egyptians,  therefore,  with  the  acquiescence  of 
Octavian,  came  to  regard  themselves  not  as  vassals  of 
Rome,  but  as  subjects  of  their  own  King,  who  happened 
at  the  same  time  to  be  Emperor  of  Rome ;  and  thus  the 
great  Egypto-Roman  Empire  for  which  Cleopatra  had 
struggled  actually  came  into  existence.  All  Emperors 
of  Rome  came  to  be  recognised  in  Egypt  not  as  sove- 
reigns of  a  foreign  empire  of  which  Egypt  was  a  part, 
but  as  actual  Pharaohs  of  Egyptian  dominions  of  which 
Rome  was  a  part. 

The  ancient  dynasties  had  passed  away,  the  Amenophis 
and  Thutmosis  family,  the  house  of  Rameses,  the  line 
of  Psammetichus,  and  many  another  had  disappeared. 
And  now,  in  like  manner,  the  house  of  the  Ptolemies  had 
fallen,  and  the  throne  of  Egypt  was  occupied  by  the 
dynasty  of  the  Caesars.  This  dynasty,  as  it  were,  sup- 
plied Rome  with  her  monarchs ;  and  the  fact  that 
Octavian  was  hailed  by  Egyptians  as  King  of  Egypt 
long  before  he  was  recognised  by  Romans  as  Emperor 
of  Rome,  gave  the  latter  throne  a  kind  of  Pharaonic 
origin  in  the  eyes  of  the  vain  Egyptians.  It  has  usually 
been  supposed  that  Egypt  became  a  Roman  province ; 
but  it  was  never  declared  to  be  such.  Octavian  arranged 
that  it  should  be  governed  by  a  praefectus,  who  was  to  act 
in  the  manner  of  a  viceroy,^  and  he  retained  the  greater 
part  of  the  Ptolemaic  revenues  as  his  personal  property. 

*  Strabo,  xvii.  i.  14;  Tacitus,  Hist.  i.  11. 


4o6     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


While  later  in  Rome  he  pretended  that  Cleopatra's 
kingdom  had  been  annexed,  in  Egypt  it  was  distinctly 
understood  that  the  country  was  still  a  monarchy. 

He  treated  the  Queen's  memory  with  respect,  since  he 
was  carrying  on  her  line ;  and  he  would  not  allow  her 
statues  to  be  overthrown.^  All  her  splendid  treasures, 
however,  and  the  gold  and  silver  plate  and  ornaments 
were  melted  down  and  converted  into  money  with  which 
to  pay  the  Roman  soldiers.  The  royal  lands  were  seized, 
the  palaces  largely  stripped  of  their  wealth ;  and  when  at 
last  Octavian  returned  to  Rome  in  the  spring  of  B.C.  29, 
he  had  become  a  fabulously  rich  man. 

On  August  13th,  14th,  and  15th  of  the  same  year  three 
great  Triumphs  were  celebrated,  the  first  day  being  de- 
voted to  the  European  conquests,  the  second  to  Actium, 
and  the  third  to  the  Egyptian  victory.  A  statue  of 
Cleopatra,  the  asp  clinging  to  her  arm,  was  dragged 
through  the  streets  of  the  capital,  and  the  Queen's  twin 
children,  Alexander  Helios  and  Cleopatra  Selene,  were 
made  to  walk  in  captivity  in  the  procession.  Images 
representing  Nilus  and  Egypt  were  carried  along,  and  an 
enormous  quantity  of  interesting  loot  was  heaped  up  on 
the  triumphal  cars.  The  poet  Propertius  tells  us  how  in 
fancy  he  saw  "the  necks  of  kings  bound  with  golden 
chains,  and  the  fleet  of  Actium  sailing  up  the  Via  Sacra." 
All  men  became  unbalanced  by  enthusiasm,  and  stories 
derogatory  to  Cleopatra  were  spread  on  all  sides. 
Horace,  in  a  wonderful  ode,  expressed  the  public  senti- 
ments, and  denounced  the  unfortunate  Queen  as  an 
enemy  of  Rome.    Honours  were  heaped  upon  Octavian ; 

'  This  was  said  to  have  been  due  to  a  bribe  received  from  one  of  Cleojatra's 
friends,  but  it  was  more  probably  political. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  407 


and  soon  afterwards  he  was  given  the  title  of  Augustus, 
and  was  named  Divifilius,  as  being  heir  of  Divus  Julius. 
He  took  great  delight  in  lauding  the  memory  of  the  great 
Dictator,  who  was  now  accepted  as  one  of  the  gods  of 
the  Roman  world ;  and  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  he 
revived  and  reorganised  the  Lupercalia,  as  though  he 
were  in  some  manner  honouring  Caesar  thereby.^ 

Meanwhile  the  three  children  of  Cleopatra  and  Antony 
found  a  generous  refuge  in  the  house  of  Octavia,  Antony's 
discarded  wife.  With  admirable  tact  Octavian  seems  to 
have  insisted  upon  this  solution  of  the  difficulty  as  to 
what  to  do  with  them.  Their  execution  would  have  been 
deeply  resented  by  the  Egyptians,  and,  since  Octavian 
was  now  posing  as  the  legal  heir  to  the  throne  of  Egypt, 
the  dynastic  successor  of  Cleopatra,  and  not  a  foreign 
usurper,  it  was  well  that  his  own  sister  should  look  after 
these  members  of  the  royal  family.  Octavia,  always 
meek  and  dutiful,  accepted  the  arrangement  nobly,  and 
was  probably  unvaryingly  kind  to  these  children  of  her 
faithless  husband,  whom  she  brought  up  with  her 
two  daughters,  Antonia  Major  and  Minor,  and  Julius 
Antonius,  the  second  son  of  Antony  and  Fulvia,  and 
brother  of  the  murdered  Antyllus.  When  the  little 
Cleopatra  Selene  grew  up  she  was  married  to  Juba,  the 
King  of  Numidia,  a  learned  and  scholarly  monarch,  who 
was  later  made  King  of  Mauretania.  The  son  of  this 
marriage  was  named  Ptolemy,  and  succeeded  his  father 
about  A.D.  ig.  He  was  murdered  by  Caligula,  who,  by 
the  strange  workings  of  Fate,  was  also  a  descendant  of 
Antony.  We  do  not  know  what  became  of  Alexander 
Helios  and  his  brother  Ptolemy.    Tacitus  tells  us  ^  that 

*  Page  174.  »  Tacitus,  Hist.,  v.  9. 


4o8     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


Antonius  Felix,  Procurator  of  Judasa  under  the  Emperor 
Nero,  married  (as  his  second  wife)  Drusilla,  a  grand- 
daughter of  Cleopatra  and  Antony,  who  was  probably 
another  of  the  Mauretanian  family.  Octavia  died  in 
B.C.  II.  Antony's  son,  Julius  Antonius,  in  B.C.  2,  was  put 
to  death  for  his  immoral  relations  with  Octavian's  own 
daughter  Julia,  she  herself  being  banished  to  the  barren 
island  of  Pandateria.  Octavian  himself,  covered  with 
honours  and  full  of  years,  died  in  a.d.  14,  being  succeeded 
upon  the  thrones  of  Egypt  and  of  Rome  by  Tiberius,  his 
son. 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Octavian,  or 
Augustus,  as  one  must  call  him,  the  influence  of 
Alexandria  upon  the  life  of  Rome  began  to  be  felt  in  an 
astonishing  degree  ;  and  so  greatly  did  Egyptian  thought 
alter  the  conditions  in  the  capital  that  it  might  well  be 
fancied  that  the  spirit  of  the  dead  Cleopatra  was  presid- 
ing over  that  throne  which  she  had  striven  to  ascend. 
Ferrero  goes  so  far  as  to  suggest  that  the  main  ideas  of 
splendid  monarchic  government  and  sumptuous  Oriental 
refinement  which  now  developed  in  Rome  were  due  to 
the  direct  influence  of  Alexandria,  and  perhaps  to  the 
fact  that  the  new  emperors  were  primarily  Kings  of 
Egypt.  Alexandrian  artists  and  artisans  swarmed  over 
the  sea  to  Italy,  and  the  hundreds  of  Romans  who  had 
snatched  estates  for  themselves  in  Egypt  travelled  fre- 
quently to  that  country  on  business,  and  unconsciously 
familiarised  themselves  with  its  arts  and  crafts.  Alex- 
andrian sculpture  and  painting  was  seen  in  every  villa, 
and  the  poetry  and  literature  of  the  Alexandrian  school 
were  read  by  all  fashionable  persons.  Every  Roman 
wanted  to  employ  Alexandrians  to  decorate  his  house. 


LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA  409 


everybody  studied  the  manners  and  refinements  of  the 
Graeco  -  Egyptians.  The  old  austerity  went  to  pieces 
before  the  buoyancy  of  Cleopatra's  subjects,  just  as  the 
aloofness  of  London  has  disappeared  under  the  Conti- 
nental invasion  of  the  last  few  years. 

Thus  it  may  be  said  that  the  Egypto-Roman  Empire 
of  Cleopatra's  dreams  came  to  be  founded  in  actual 
fact,  with  this  difference,  that  its  monarchs  were  sprung 
from  the  line  of  Octavian,  Csesar's  nephew,  and  not  from 
that  of  Csesarion,  Caesar's  son.  But  while  Egypt  and 
Alexandria  thus  played  such  an  important  part  in  the 
creation  of  the  Roman  monarchy,  the  memory  of 
Cleopatra,  from  whose  brain  and  whose  influence  the 
new  life  had  proceeded,  was  yearly  more  painfully  vilified. 
She  came  to  be  the  enemy  of  this  Orientalised  Rome, 
which  still  thought  itself  Occidental ;  and  her  struggle 
with  Octavian  was  remembered  as  the  evil  crisis  through 
which  the  party  of  the  Caesars  had  passed.  Abuse  was 
heaped  upon  her,  and  stories  were  invented  in  regard  to 
her  licentious  habits.  It  is  upon  this  insecure  basis  that 
the  world's  estimate  of  the  character  of  Cleopatra  is 
founded ;  and  it  is  necessary  for  every  student  of  these 
times  at  the  outset  of  his  studies  to  rid  his  mind  of 
the  impression  which  he  will  have  obtained  from  these 
polluted  sources.  Having  shut  out  from  his  memory 
the  stinging  words  of  Propertius  and  the  fierce  lines  of 
Horace,  written  in  the  excess  of  his  joy  at  the  close  of 
the  period  of  warfare  which  had  endangered  his  little 
country  estate,  the  reader  will  be  in  a  position  to  judge 
whether  the  interpretation  of  Cleopatra's  character  and 
actions,  which  I  have  laid  before  him,  is  to  be  considered 
as  unduly  lenient,  and  whether  I  have  made  unfair  use  of 


410     LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CLEOPATRA 


the  merciful  prerogative  of  the  historian,  in  behalf  of  an 
often  lonely  and  sorely  tried  woman,  who  fought  all  her 
life  for  the  fulfilment  of  a  patriotic  and  splendid  ambi- 
tion, and  who  died  in  a  manner  "befitting  the  de- 
scendant of  so  many  kings." 


THE  END. 


PRINTED  BY  WILLIAM  BLACKWOOD  AND  SONS. 


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